The Scroll from his Family
by valor of the twilight lord
Summary: more than one year before naruto enters the academy he is given a scroll from his mother that contains secrets passed down and expanded upon by his ancesters on his mothers side all the way back to one of whome helped split the buji apart with the sage
1. Prologue and chaper 1

Disclaimer-I do not own Naruto or most of the ideas here however I do claim the insomnia that caused me to write this in the first place.

Also this is my first real attempt at writing a good fan fiction so I would appreciate it if there aren't any extremely negative reviews just yet.

Prologue start

Lightning flashed across the sky as nature fought the receding demonic energies that had been so recently released. The landscape was torn from the sheer amount of power that had been released and then contained. Everything within was dead or dying except two people who were laying at the edge of one of the craters that dotted the dying place. The sage of six paths was lying on the ground in the middle of an enormous crater that even then was beginning to fill with water. As he lay there he couldn't believe that his best friend was at deaths door because of his own failure, and all because he had almost lost control of the ceremony that was splitting apart the demon he had contained.

Flashback

He had less than 6 months to live before the demonic energy of the ten tailed beast completely destroyed his body and it was free once again. It was time to use the plan that he had never wanted to. This plan was to split the demons essence and power in such a way that prevented it from ever returning. As without this it would most likely plunge the world into war for hundreds of years. The yokai in the atmosphere was exorcised by the people learned to control chakra. They slowly drained the yokai from nature and then expelled it as they used their jutsu. By expelling it along with their own energy it could be consumed by the jutsu. This process would also cause more people in the world to grow and develop chakra coils to a greater extent, Even when the demonic yokai was finished being consumed it would remain so long as the family actively trained and sought out the ability to use their own chakra's might.

The plan had been nearly flawless until the new seven tail beast took more energy than it should have being sealed into a stone tablet, and he wasn't fully recovered in time to seal the eight tails when it was split off from the remaining bulk of demonic yokai. His best and oldest friend was there in an instant and was casting chains of chakra that were able to at least temporarily contain the new demons power. As soon as he had been able to, he immediately started on the new seals for the eight tails containment and was feeding in his own energy to its new home. As the last one of the nine was released from the ten tails corpse, its very body began killing off the nature around it as the powers clashed. New chains appeared from Kushina's hands as she dumped all of the chakra she had left into the chains that bound the shapeless demon that bore nine tails. The eight tails seal flared brightly as its now prisoner was bound tightly into the new cell. Even as he saw his oldest friend's power fading, his hands had begun flashing through the hand seals that she had helped him devise to control the power he was now channeling to contain the last and most powerful of the segments that had split off of the ten tails. It let out a bestial roar as it took the form of a fox just it was swallowed by the silver vase that would contain its power for quite some time. The last of the nine tails power was fading as Kushina collapsed from overuse of her chakra. Even as he saw her fall he had started his final set of seals to make sure that even the corpse of the ten tails would never be used by anyone in the turbulent era that was to come. The body of the ten tails dissolved as nearly every last drop of his chakra was swallowed by the jutsu that was sealing the mighty beast's remains in the safest place that he could think of. As he stared up at the night sky the moon shown so brightly that the patterns on its surface came aglow for even those who didn't know that they were there. A complex set of runes appeared on a crystalline pendant that hung around his neck. The explosion that occurred as the final remaining yokai dispersed wasn't something that he had counted on.

Flashback end

Even as they lay there, they both knew that even if they survived this night they would be living on borrowed time that could end in moments as it was only the energy from nature that was keeping them alive for the moment. While they had some chakra left, it wouldn't have been enough to allow them to live for as long as they already had.

As Kushina lay there, a view of an unfamiliar village took control of her vision as the figures fighting a huge nine tailed fox came into view and then a blond man sealed it into a child to stop the deaths that were happening. A masked figure floated over the man's shoulder and was staring straight at her as he drew the demons soul through the man's body and into the child's consuming both the man's soul and a portion of the tainted energy that the fox was giving off. Slowly the vision faded away and all that was left was the masked figure that still stood just looking at her. After a time that could have been infinity or a single second he spoke in a chilling voice.

"**I am the Shinigami, the god of death, and you are so close to death that I can speak with you**," the masked figure stated as it almost played with the knife that it held in its right sleeve covered hand. "**The vision that I have shown to you is an event that will happen a great many years from now and from his mother's side the child that you just saw is your direct descendant**." The figure stared off into the distance as the bluish energy around its knife seemed to swirl even brighter than it had before continuing. "**He will live a hard life because of those who want him to be a weapon and those that see him as a demon but throughout it he will live on and struggle through until he achieves his goal of being seen as himself and not the monster that he holds**."

The Shinigami turned its glowing gaze back upon Kushina as its visible power took upon another hue before continuing. "**You and your sage friend are only alive because you both hold knowledge that the child that I showed you may need in his life to prevent a tragedy that even I the death god would not wish upon humanity. The only question is will you record all of the knowledge that you hold so that your descendent may have a better chance to stop the resurrection of the ten tails?**"

Her body was frozen as she listened to the death god and a short vision of the child's future were brought before her eyes should she not provide what help she could. Her mind clouded by the tears and her eyes wet her gaze met the Shinigami's once again and she wordlessly conveyed that she would make to the best of her ability that everything that she could leave would be left to that unnamed descendant of hers.

"**You have made your choice and while even I cannot say that you will be able to leave everything that you know all at once I can promise you that even without your help he would have been a person that would never lose and that there is a very good chance that in the final battle he would have won, it never hurts to carry the extra power though, so now life has a much better chance of survival. The last thing that I will tell you about that though, is that no matter what else he does your descendant will carry a pure heart and soul throughout his life. A soul so pure in fact that some of kami's angles look dirty in comparison to his spirit. Now however, I'm afraid that I must lock most of your memories away until the day that we meet again but, you will remember the task that you have taken upon yourself and that you took it willingly even if you don't remember why**." The Shinigami turned to leave when one last sentence left its mouth. "**You have the last four months that the sage would have had before the ten tails would have devoured him before both of your life forces fade into death so, I would suggest that you get him to help you in your task.**"

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Several hundred years later a young girl by the same name stood before the Daimyo of hi no kuni as the ninja team that had rescued her stood waiting upon his decision. For what seemed like an eternity as the Daimyo discussed the proposal that she had given.

After several hours the Daimyo turned back to her and lightly said, "I agree with this proposal on the understanding that when you should choose to retire from your ninja career, that you help in the governance of your former people and that one of your children marries one of my granddaughters when the time should come. Until that marriage at least, none of the village hidden in the leaves save the hokage shall know of your true heritage. However the child that is to marry one of my granddaughters will need to spend at least some of his childhood here at the capitol so that they may know one another for when the time comes."

The young girl rose from the low cushion that had been provided for her earlier and bowed to the Fire Daimyo and said in a very formal voice, "I thank you for respecting my families traditions and for letting me join your country's hidden village. Though I am the last of my family and I would like to leave a duplicate of a scroll that my family has passed down from the time of the sage of six paths within your library."

The last statement caught the Daimyo's attention as things from that day and age were rare and hard to find. He gently asked, "What is contained in this most ancient of scrolls so that I may know what is within my library?"

What little light there had been within Kushina's eyes vanished as she almost blankly replied, "the history of my family as well as all of the knowledge that my family has been accumulating throughout the time since then. It contains volumes on every subject that we have ever come across from battle strategy to ninja arts to the sealing arts. It is a duplicate copy to the one I'm going to carry with me to my new home in case something happens to the original to where it cannot be handed down and so that at the very least the knowledge will not be lost." As she finished speaking one of her ninja escort stepped forward and presented a scroll to Kushina who in turn knelt before the Daimyo while presenting the scroll which he gladly accepted.

As he tried to unfurl the scroll he found it sealed shut with an unfamiliar seal on the opening and so decided to ask about its usage, "How do you open this scroll if I may ask young Uzumaki-hime?"

"The scroll is under a modified blood seal so that it will open whenever a drop of blood from my family hits the seal the scroll opens until it is closed and then it resets," Kushina said with a sad smile on her face. "The real secret to the seal though is that if there should ever come a time when there are no blood members of the Uzumaki family left the seal will dissolve and the scroll will be able to be opened normally however a number of the storage seals inside will destroy their contents at that point."

"Ah, and if that should happen would I need to worry about any of the other contents of my library being in danger from this scroll?," the Daimyo calmly asked as he looked with newfound respect upon the large scroll that he held.

"No, the storage seals in the scroll are set up so that only the contents of select seals will be incinerated while leaving no outward trace until that seal is opened to show the ashes of its former contents," Kushina replied as her eyes finally began to gain back some of their warmth before she continued, "When I was fleeing Uzu I was given these two scrolls by my uncle before he lead the people away from my trail and one other that held a very special family tree as well as the treasury of the Uzumaki family that he had managed to save. The family tree consists of seals and goes back to the time of the sage of six paths. What makes it so special is that it changes itself accordingly for the situation of the owners of the names it depicts, it shows all of my living relatives and the deceased who have a red background upon their name and only one name still bears a blue living background and that is Tsunade Senju which is why I chose the leaf village for my new home and why I chose to leave a copy of this scroll here."

A blond man slowly walked away from the hospital with his hour old son swathed in blankets held tightly in his arms as tears slide down his cheeks even as the nine tailed fox made its way ever closer to the village from where it had reformed after being freed from its captivity. His white trench coat had the Kanji for Yondaime on the back. As he made his way to his office in the tower already knowing what must be done even as he heard his wife's last words, as he sealed the last remnants of her sprit and chakra so that if nothing else their son would have the chance to meet his mother. At least once in his life when he incorporated several very special seals into the formula for the contract that he was about to use. To summon the death god was a fearsome and powerful ability, however within one's life each person who had signed the contract was allowed to summon the Shinigami twice. Once to set up the contract and then to actually perform the jutsu, and he had just finished setting up the sealing arrays in case the fox tried to break free when his wife gave birth and gone to check up on Kushina when he had been informed of the foxes imminent attack, and the more it attacked, the more wild and powerful the attacks became.

Now he was just wishing that he hadn't been so dense when he had been younger, so that he and his wife would have had more time together before she had died. As he sat down in his office he tapped a seal on the underside of the desk and a scroll popped out. Now to most this scroll wouldn't have been very special because it mostly looked like just a simple painting of his marriage ceremony after he had finally discovered that he loved the red haired princess from whirlpool however it also contained seals hidden within some of the more elaborate designs. Closing the scroll he smiled over at his son who was slowly moving around on the low sofa in the corner. The sealing jutsu that he used on the scroll was a modified blood seal so that if Naruto hadn't claimed it within 20 years then anyone could open the scroll. Several hand seals later and a poof was heard as a toad appeared out of a small cloud of smoke.

"Ya need something," the orange and green vest wearing toad asked almost as if annoyed at being summoned.

"Yes, I will be resealing the nine tailed fox soon," the Yondaime replied sadly as he began writing out another scroll carefully. "I'll need you to deliver a scroll to both the Daimyo and the toad elders," the Yondaime concluded as he finished writing on the scroll he had been working on and moved over to Naruto. Pulling a small vial out of his pocket he carefully pricked Naruto's arm and let several drops of blood fall into the vial before using a small medical jutsu to repair what he had done. Taking a minute to mix the blood into a small pot of ink he carefully began inscribing a seal on the scroll before repeating the process in between Naruto's shoulder blades.

Wrapping up the scrolls he gave them to the small toad saying, "The red scroll goes to the Daimyo to tell him what will happen here tonight while the other scroll goes to the elder toads. Before you go I'd like to thank you for all the times that you helped me in the past with messages and such. I only have one other message for you to deliver and that is that I'm going to be summoning Gamabunta in a short while to give me a hand in sealing the fox away."

As the small toad disappeared in a puff of smoke with the scrolls, Minato was staring over at the horizon where the dull red blow was getting brighter as the fox slowly solidified its form for the first time in almost one hundred years.

It had been almost a week since Minato Namikaze, the Yondaime Hokage, had sacrificed himself to stop the Kyuubi rampage upon its release and the Daimyo sat in his office reviewing the letter he had gotten from the toad summon that had arrived just hours after the sealing had been done.

In essence all the letter was asking was that he give the scroll Kushina had left in his library all those years ago before she had moved to Konohagakure to Naruto sometime after he was six along with an update to the scroll that Kushina had made throughout her life so that the scroll would have all of the information as the copy that Kushina had added to the copy of the scroll that had been sealed behind the doors of the Yondaime's house before Minato had died.

Sighing as he looked out the window he wondered which one of his granddaughters he would engage young Naruto to when the time came and silently decided that it might not be a bad idea if his wife stayed at their house in Konohagakure and kept an eye on things as well as the development of Naruto so that he would have an idea of what to expect when he met him.

As the Daimyo of fire country was entertaining these thoughts Gamabunta was deep into conversation with the elder toads that still lived on Mt. Myoboku.

"Minato set up that summoning seal on the back of Naruto's neck so that even if we choose not to allow him to sign our contract we could at least meet and judge him to see if he should be allowed to sign. Besides if we wait for Jiraiya to let him sign the contract than there is no telling when or if he will sign our contract and we owe Minato too much to not do at least this for him," Gamabunta said before taking another large pull from his pipe before exhaling a large cloud of smoke.

Two of the elder toads looked at each other for a moment before nodding and asking, "That wasn't really the question Gamabunta but rather when we should summon him here to test him."

Taking another long draft from his pipe, Gamabunta replied, "I'd say that at about somewhere between eight through fifteen if no one has any suggestions." At this suggestion all of the elder toads nodded nearly simultaneously (although if it was from agreement or from them falling asleep Gamabunta would never know).

On another plain of existence two sprits were waking up as they slowly moved to stand before a chilling voice finished waking up. "**I hope you two have had a restful sleep considering where you are**," it called as they both saw the ghastly vision of the Shinigami sitting on an ebon throne in a darkened castle room.

Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki Namikaze were left gaping at the Shinigami and the place that surrounded them and couldn't help shuddering every time they looked at the Shinigami.

"**Normally the both of you would never have come to this place after you died however because of the fragments of your soul that are still contained within the seal that you used on your son you cannot move past this point until the day that your son has released those portions of the seal and lets you free," **theShinigami continued. "**Between now and then you may look upon his life through the orb in the middle of this room so that you may see just what your choices have meant for your son."**

Chapter 1

Six years had passed since the Kyuubi had been sealed within a child and it was once again the anniversary of the night that the nine tailed fox had attacked the village hidden in leaves. Many things had changed in the intervening years and at the forefront of it was the fact that the village was only back up to two thirds of its strength from before the attack. The third hokage had resumed his post as the acting leader of the village and had issued two laws almost immediately after his reinstatement and of those laws one was out in the open and the other was agreed upon by the Daimyo of fire country that the secret was to remain hidden for at least a number of years to rebuild the ninja forces of hi no kuni. The first law was given to the villagers and stated that no villager was to talk about the nine tailed fox beyond the cover story that had been circulated, while the second law was that Naruto Uzumaki's true heritage not to be told to anyone and that it was to be a double S class secret to any and all who didn't know. A cover story that he had used an orphan and that it is the effects of the sealing that caused Naruto to look like Minato Namikaze. There wasn't a very long list of people that knew the truth because very few had known of Minato's marriage to Kushina Uzumaki. The Fire Daimyo was among the number because he had been at the small wedding that had been held in the capital about a month before Minato was supposed to take over for Sarutobi. Many things had happened since that small ceremony that had been held in a hidden portion of the capital.

Two years previously Naruto Uzumaki had been thrown out of the orphanage and lived on the streets for two months before the third hokage found him curled up in a ball on the edge of a training ground when he had been out for a stroll to check up on the various genin teams in person since he had made a significant dent in his most hated foe, (after all, for such a persistent foe it was only right to give it time to recover, right?).

In those two years Naruto had been taught the basics of how to live on his own by the various genin teams that had been assigned to do so. As time had passed the teams had slowed down on how often they had come until they had stopped coming a month before and he had been forced to make do on his own. And then came that night.

!

He was running. His legs were burning and he could barely breathe beyond the quick short pant that wasn't helping very much. As he turned the corner he came face to face with another one of the groups that were taking an almost perverse delight in cornering him. Several of the villagers started throwing rocks at him as they chased him until one struck him on the back of the knee, jerking his leg out from under him. He fell forward and to the side, sliding some until he hit the wall on the side of the alley. As the villagers beat on him they were yelling things at him which made no sense with the pounding in his head from the impact against the wall as he stopped. After several minutes of this his world turned black and he knew no more.

He slowly opened his eyes to the plain white walls that surrounded him and chemical smell that coated every medical building he had ever been in. Taking a closer look at the room showed that it was one of the rooms that he knew were in the Hokage's tower on the second floor. This was the yet another time he had been treated for a number of various injuries in the past two years since he had been thrown out of the orphanage.

Looking around the small treatment room his eyes came to rest on a small calendar on a desk in the corner. Each date had been crossed out up until the current date, October 10, his sixth birthday.

Four ninja in ceremonial armor came in through the door and stood in each of the corners of the room and removed two ninja to one side of the room furthest from the door. A third was also attempted to be removed from behind a hidden panel in the ceiling and tried attacking when he was exposed. He was sporting a bloody grin on his throat almost instantly and one of the four in ceremonial armor picked up the corpse and along with the two anbu who had been hidden in the room previously disappeared in a column of leaves and a slight wind. Four more people entered the room these ones obviously samurai from the set of their armor and took up positions on either side of the door and one at the other door leaving the last to take the gap next to the window.

A man and woman entered the room and as the door shut Naruto caught a glimpse of another two guards taking up position on the other side of the door. The man was in a very elaborate haymaker and projected a presence well into the room. The woman wore a similarly elaborate kimono that almost screamed nobility.

"Ah, Naruto," the man began. "You worried me for a while after my guards rescued you from that mob."

Now Naruto was confused and all he could think about to himself was why had this man cared enough to save him? He didn't voice this thought to the man though instead he asked, "I'm sorry but who are you?" Normally Naruto wasn't much for manners and other formal things but this man had helped him so the least he could do was be polite for now.

"Ah, at this time my name won't mean anything to you however to partially sate your curiosity I am the daimio of hi no kuni and this is my wife lady Shimji," the man stated before he continued. "Six years ago I received a letter from a man that was a friend of mine to look out for his son and that as the executioner of his will to keep a hold of everything that was supposed to go to his son until his son was old enough to manage it himself. Now with the information that my informants in the village have gathered for me in the last few hours as well as the file on you that the hokage gave me after I told him why I wanted to know I see how to accomplish the favor that my old friend asked of me." Nodding toward the door the samurai opened the door to let a kunochi in less elaborate clothing walked in sporting a noticeable limp. "This is Kisala. She is a retired kunochi that used to guard my wife until she was injured almost two years ago in an assassination attempt. Currently she runs a small apartment building that has a vacancy that I have arranged for you live in for now and she will also take over and teach you what the orphanage was supposed to teach you but failed to. She may even teach you some of the shinobi arts."

At this point Naruto was very confused but his confusion only jumped to higher points when he gestured to the samurai next to the door and the door opened again to allow in another fancily dressed samurai that was carrying a seemingly heavy chest. "This chest contains a number of things from your parents as well as a number of other things. Now Kisala has been briefed about a number of facts and will teach you and show you when the time is right. Now I must take my leave as I've already taken more time than my schedule would normally allow and my paperwork beckons."

With that he and his wife left the room and the next several weeks were a whirlwind of activity as plans were made and Naruto was getting used to the new information that he had been given.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Six years after, night of the graduation exam.)

Naruto while sitting in the clearing in front of a shack in the woods couldn't help but think to himself that this supposed make up test really was stupid for an evil plot made by a chūnin. The funny thing was that he hadn't even stolen the real forbidden scroll; rather he had just taken one of the large blank scrolls from the storage room down the hall while he had hidden the real forbidden scroll underneath Hokage's desk. He would have taken the real scroll but he just didn't need the kind of punishment that it would entail if his plan didn't pan out. Looking back he thought about the things that he had been working on for the last six years since he had met the Daimyo of Fire country and his training in his family legacy began. Hiding almost all of his proficiency in the ninja arts had been a continuous effort and some of the seals that he had applied to his own body and clothes were very much a part of the deception. Sure the Hokage suspected something of what skills he was hiding but not nearly everything that he actually was.

Hearing a rustling in the trees he schooled his features into innocent enthusiasm that he would be feeling if he had actually entirely been the person he portrayed himself as, he looked up and barely stopped himself from reaction in shock. There standing over him was Iruka and not Mizuke, who was looking fairly angry.

"What did you think you were doing stealing the forbidden scroll Naruto?" Iruka all but yelled at Naruto.

"But, didn't Mizuke tell you that he assigned me the makeup exam of a mock mission," Naruto stated quickly in the hope that Iruka could figure out what was going on. As Iruka put everything together in his head the sound of a wire being cut echoed in the clearing. As several kunai were sailing into the clearing Iruka pushed Naruto out of the way of the blades and was knocked against the wall of the shack.

"Ah, Iruka, I was hoping to save you for later but then you just had to be here at this meeting," Mizuke said with a satisfied smirk on his face. "Naruto give me the scroll and you pass the makeup exam." Mizuke said as he regained his seriousness.

"Naruto, he's lying, there is no makeup exam, he's using you to steal the scroll," Iruka yelled as he ripped a kunai out of his leg.

Mizuke chuckled as he said, "you talk about lying to him when everyone around him has been lying to him his whole life. Ever since the law twelve years ago."

"No, Mizuke, its forbidden," Iruka yelled as the law of the third came to mind.

"What is this law," Naruto asked, curious as to what secret Mizuke would spill to get an easy opening.

"The law is that the forth didn't kill the nine tailed fox, rather he sealed it into a human body -you." Mizuke said with a slight sadistic tone creeping into his voice. "You, Naruto Uzumaki are the nine tailed fox."

Naruto was shocked. It was true that he suspected that the nine tailed fox had been sealed in him however he had never quite gotten any proof other that a few hastily hushed whispers, the names that he was called, the mobs of inebriated people that would occasionally chase him. And the seal on his stomach that he had yet to decode even a third of. In his distracted state he never saw the shuriken that Mizuke had thrown.

"Naruto, get down," Iruka yelled as he moved as fast as he could in front of the shuriken's path to stop it from hitting Naruto.

Brain finally rebooting due to the attack by Mizuke from the information that he had received he dodged around Iruka on the left while drawing a rather unusual kunai with his right hand in a reverse grip. The kunai was a dull bluish white rather than the usual black. One sharp jerk forward and the shuriken was cut neatly in two and off in two slightly different directions, with one landing short of its intended targets while the other grazed Iruka's back cutting a vertical slit in the red spiral and a shallow gash into his back beneath it, fortunately not cutting anything that couldn't be healed with a few days rest and some bandages to help constrict the wound or even faster if it was taken care of by a medical ninja.

"Sensei, why did you try and protect me?" Naruto asked even as he took up a protective stance from Mizuke.

"Because you remind me so much of myself back when I was an academy student." Iruka stated as he wobbled a bit from the pain from his wounds. "You're always trying so hard, and even when you fail you get up and laugh about it. It was like looking in a reflection of the way that I once was."

"That's a lie, Iruka would say anything right now to make you keep the scroll," Mizuke said before releasing an evil laugh.

Kunai disappearing back where it came from Naruto ran. Running almost diagonally from where he knew the village to be from where he was. The trail behind him wide left obviously enough for even Mizuke to find even though he wasn't as good at tracking as other chūnin were supposed to be.

With Iruka and Mizuke following him he knew that he would need to hide soon so that he could contemplate the new information that Mizuke had let escape as well as the truth behind why Iruka treated him as he did on occasion. Lost in his own thoughts he almost didn't notice as Mizuke and Iruka landed near him and talking and even then he didn't register any of the short conversation that they had until he heard Mizuke state, "Naruto is a beast, and like a beast he'll pour his rage and hate into the scroll and use its techniques for his own power to destroy what he hates."

Mizuke's laughter echoed over the area as Naruto mentally went through what he knew of Mizuke's skills. In the near silence Naruto heard a slight chuckle that escaped Iruka before he pulled himself into a more upright position and said, "You're right, that is how a beast would act."

Silence settled across the clearing as Naruto began thinking about how much of an act Iruka was putting on with how he had acted earlier and how much he had lied to him over the years. The next sentence that came from Iruka's mouth blew all of those thoughts right out of Naruto's head as Iruka continued, "But Naruto isn't like that. Sure he makes mistakes but he works hard, even though everyone jumps on him for his mistakes but his suffering only makes him stronger, so you're wrong he's not a beast. He's Naruto Uzumaki of the leaf village."

"You're a fool," Mizuke said as he unclipped the second shuriken from his back and started spinning it in his hand. "I was hoping to save you for later but I changed my mind." Charging forward as he finished his speech Mizuke never saw the knee that connected with his chin. His overly large shuriken was sent flying into the forest.

Landing and tossing the large scroll he carried so that it landed near Iruka, Naruto narrowed his eyes and said, "lay a hand on my sensei again and you will die."

"Ha, like you could do anything to me, brat." Mizuke said as he regained his balance from being thrown back. "Just try a punk like you can't do anything to a chūnin like me, I can take you down with just one attack."

"Just try it, but I should warn you, you've already lost." Naruto said calmly before making a strange hand sign before pulling out several of the blue white kunai and throwing them. None of their paths would hit him so Mizuke just let the kunai fly past him. Pulling out one last kunai, Naruto threw it at his feet and formed one last hand sign before touching the kunai.

Chains erupted from every kunai connecting them into a box like shape around Mizuke, trapping him within it's confines. A bluish barrier snapping into place just inside the confines of the chains along with a faint blue sheen covering the ground beneath Mizuke's feet.

Panicking a bit, Mizuke shot forward and bounced off one of the walls of the barrier. Several minutes passed as Mizuke tried more and more desperately to break the barrier that he was trapped in. His chest rising and falling more and more rapidly as each attack failed. Soon he slumped to the ground in the center of the barrier. After waiting another minute Naruto let the barrier drop. Almost instantly Mizuke's breathing got better as soon as the barrier dropped. Pulling four more kunai from somewhere on himself Naruto launched them so that one was next to each of his limbs. Unzipping and reaching into his jacket there was a slight poof of smoke and his hand removed a black bladed katana with three links of chain extending from the hilt.

As Iruka saw Naruto move toward Mizuke's head with a sword in hand he just about yelled, "Naruto, what do you think you're doing?"

"Ehh, sorry sensei," Naruto said while rubbing the back of his head although he hadn't stopped circling around toward Mizuke's head. "I just don't want Mizuke waking up and escaping before the whole story gets out."

As Naruto finally got around to Mizuke's head and began moving closer and began raising his katana over his head, Iruka yelled, "Naruto, stop!"

As the blade tore home ripping into the ground Iruka had closed his eyes when because of his injuries he couldn't get around to stop it in time and didn't want to see his one time friend die in front of him. Opening his eyes when he only heard the sound of a blade cutting earth he saw the odd sight of Naruto's katana stabbed into the ground just to the left of Mizuke's neck barely nicking his throat and drawing a slight amount of blood that ran down the blade. Naruto was standing next to the katana running through hand seals somewhat slowly showing that while he knew the technique he was using it wasn't one that he had practiced extensively. Noting that it took a huge number of seals Iruka saw several among the sequence that he didn't recognize before Naruto layered his hands over each other so that his palms lined up together and a white energy surrounded them.

"Sealing style: five chained restriction seal. Seal." Naruto roared as he slapped his palms down on the sword and they moved his palms over the sides of the hilt with seals lighting up all along the blade of the katana. Chains started forming from both the katana and every one of the kunai that wrapped around the limb that they were closest to. A strong flash of light nearly blinded Iruka as it lit up the clearing to brighter than it had ever been.

As the light cleared, black markings were spreading along Mizuke's neck, wrists, and ankles. After almost a minute of the markings shifting they settled into markings circling around each of the affected limbs with a circle with the kanji for restrict facing the direction that had one of the kunai or sword was piercing the ground nearest him.

"That should hold him for awhile." Naruto said as he gather up the weapons and returned them to their hiding places and Iruka struggled to come to terms with the new information about his student. Placing his fingers into a cross shaped hand seal Naruto called out, "Shadow Clone Jutsu." and in five puffs of smoke there were now six identical orange clothed blonds. Four blonds moved over to Mizuke and positioning themselves at each of his limbs picked him up and started toward the village. The last shadow clone moved over to Iruka and helped him stand up because while Iruka wasn't injured enough that he couldn't walk his balance wasn't the best at the moment. The original grabbed the blank scroll from where he had stashed it.

After they reached the tower among a large grumbling group of chūnin and jounin Iruka was shocked when the Hokage handed Naruto a headband and congratulated him on a job well done.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Several hours later after a number of chūnin and jounin finally moved off after finding out that not only had the stolen scroll been hidden in the Hokage's office the whole time but that the chūnin that had raised the alarm had been the real one trying to steal the scroll and that that the demon brat had a number of skills that he had kept hidden. Iruka and the Sandaime were talking about team placements as the recently graduated students teachers would normally do to help assign the new teams.

"I'm still not quite sure how Sakura managed to get the top kunochi spot when I'm looking at her file." Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage said as he looked through the files that were across his desk.

"Yes, well between the fact that this year there were only two kunochi from clans and the fangirlish tendencies that they almost all had, none of them except Hinata reached over the minimum physical limit so most of the kunochi rankings are by the bookwork and tests that are given during the year and if you'll look Sakura is very smart when it comes to bookwork." Iruka answered while scratching his nose nervously.

"Ah, yes, I see the notation in the file now." Sarutobi replied as he saw the yellow warning tape on the side of the folder. "Could you explain how she beat both Ino and Hinata from her class though?"

"Ino and Sakura were friends at one time and over time both became fan girls of Sasuke Uchiha and because of what she thought would win her Sasuke, her training suffered." Iruka began with Sarutobi nodding after a certain point as the facts clicked in his mind. "Hinata on the other hand, while she exceeded the physical requirements fro kunochi, did not meet the required level in other areas as far as we could determine. Now, there is a very high probability that it was a problem with her self confidence that caused her to score so low on the tests, but there isn't anything that we could do as we can only score students on what they decide to show in class."

"Hokage-sama, what are we going to do about Naruto because with his graduation it puts the numbers off by one." Iruka said suddenly as he had just counted the number of folders on the desk.

"Don't worry Iruka, I already noticed that problem and have a solution to it." Sarutobi said as he continued leafing through the folders on his desk idly making notes on possible teams on a paper to the right. "For now we will institute him as a one man cell under the pretext that ether more will be assigned to his team as we get more Genin in need of a team or he will be moved onto an existing team when one of their members is promoted or dies. Also for right now he won't have an assigned instructor but that will change when he ether gets more people on his team or when he is moved onto a team." as Iruka started to open his mouth to complain, Sarutobi continued, "And before you complain you need to know that even if Naruto were sent back to the academy as he has already graduated once he is no longer eligible for the orphans stipend and he would be required to work out some way to get money and this will allow him to do d-rank missions even if he doesn't pass the test that I'm going to give him to insure that he meets the requirements of a freshly graduated genin. Who knows, maybe I'll assign myself as his supervisor until he has more teammates. It would certainly get me out of this office more often even if it was just to observe his training."

The protests that Iruka had been about to make died on his lips as the sandaime partially explained his plan if Naruto were to pass the test that he was going to give him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

End of the first chapter

Took me a long while to write this because of a great lack of motivation on my part because even though I put up the prologue up on here over a year ago I just really couldn't decide how to proceed with the story until recently. Also I did receive permission from Ackdam to use the one man team idea but as this was over a year ago I don't know if he remembers it. In the future I will probably draw a number of ideas from other fan fiction but with the number of them that I've read it is difficult to tell just where any idea comes from when it comes into my head. Anyway constructive criticism is always welcomed as are messages telling me what people like and don't like however unless I'm told what a person doesn't like about the story I cannot fix or attempt to fix it for whatever reason.

Valor


	2. Chapter 2

Do not own Naruto in any way shape or form

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Naruto woke up in his apartment, he looked around in memory of all of the times that he had looked around the room he was in now. It wasn't until the second glance around the room that he noticed that not only was the door missing but, the window was as well. As he jerked himself out of bed he fell to the floor before noticing the huge trap door that lay open by his feet. So he fell screaming into a seemingly endless void, devoid of any markings of passage save for the feeling of falling. Finally he landed in water that seemingly came from nowhere. As he stood up in the waist deep water, he found himself in a passage that led into what looked like a sewer. He waded over to the higher side of the tunnel, and he wondered just where he was. As he moved along the tunnel he noticed the water decreased however it was in long sluggishly moving lines.

Wandering along the passage Naruto couldn't help but wonder to himself just what was causing this strange event. Careful to avoid the deeper sections of water he soon found himself at a crossroads in the path. One path led below the water but had a more pleasant feel to it, while the others didn't dip nearly as far into the water they didn't carry the feeling of light at the end either. All of the other paths lead back to under the water but none held the light feeling that was present at the end of this one. The path above the water held a feeling of greater darkness around it. Taking a deep breath, Naruto dove into the water and started swimming, a fragments of memories became visible before his eyes for an instant before vanishing back into the murky depths. Soon he came to the surface and found himself in a bright corridor with many colored doors that seemed to drive the water away. As he opened each door he would relive a memory and with each memory he relived of pure happiness the water which had seemed so oppressive just moments before was looking cleaner than when he first came in. Every door that he had opened too now bore an image of what the memories represented. The last door that he opened wasn't a memory in the normal sense because it was only an image that seemed to be continuously looping of a red haired woman and a blond haired man both with faces filled with happiness as they looked on the wrapped bundle in the woman's arms. A tiny hint of blond hair was sticking from the blanket as well as the whiskers that were visible on his cheeks. As the last door closed behind him, he moved back into the water returning to the crossroads that had stopped him before. With the weight on his shoulders lessened he once again was moving along the path.

Many bends in the path almost disguised the fact that he seemed to be moving lower even as pipes began flowing along the ceiling and walls, each one with a small circle of what looked like glass showing what passed through them was colors so vastly different from one another that it passed through the rainbow leaving almost no color untouched. As he moved further, even more colors emerged in the intersections, although how in the world there was something that was colored plaid was in those pipes Naruto didn't want to know. Eventually he came to a door upon which a howling fox head could be seen. Almost hesitantly he opened the door and entered the room.

As he entered torches within the room lit, and began shedding their light upon the room. At first it was as if there was nothing in the room, but as the light spread a cage with golden bars came into view. With the lights only barely penetrating the cage he saw at each corner of the cage bound with chains on their wrists and with their lower bodies stuck with in the pillars was the very same blond haired man and red headed woman from the last door that he had opened in the corridor that held his happier memories.

As Naruto started rushing toward the prone figure of the red haired woman a dark voice from the shadows next to the cage spoke, "They won't wake."

Stopping and staring toward the voice Naruto had trouble finding his voice as a figure stepped from the shadows. Wearing robes and carrying prayer beads the demonic looking figure cut a frightening visage as he moved toward Naruto. Suddenly finding his voice Naruto all but yelled, "Why not? Why won't she wake and for that matter why won't he either?"

"Because they are nothing but fragments of souls tied into the seal that hold the cage shut and once their purpose is done they shall be united with the rest of their soul which awaits them in my castle between the borders of this life and the next." the terrifying figure continued.

"Who are you and who are they?" Naruto asked as his fear gradually subsided.

"I, Naruto, am the god of death, kami of all things that reside in the departure of souls, and the ferryman for departed souls to the afterlife. I am the Shinigami and for this moment you have nothing to fear of me." the Shinigami introduced himself. "And as for the souls that bound themselves to that duty, I will introduce you to them soon but first we have more pressing matters. If you would show yourself?"

Echoing laughter echoed from within the cage as two giant red eyes opened and began staring down at them. A momentary surge of fear enveloped Naruto as he looked up and saw those malevolent eyes staring down on him as well as the evil grin that formed within the darkness and added its own feeling of malevolence and insanity to the terror that overwhelmed Naruto. On seeing the terror its smile widened to show more of its huge fangs. In a booming deep evil voice it spoke, "So the child fears the demon, and yet the evils that I have committed pale in comparison to many of the evils that humanity has perpetrated."

"Now isn't the time to discuss philosophy Kyuubi." the Shinigami sadly in a much less evil tone projecting this time. "Now, Naruto, as you know now, on the night of your birth the Kyuubi was sealed into you. And while even I do not wish to begin explaining the story to you, some of it is pertinent to why I brought you here. The technique used to seal the Kyuubi into you was called Shiki Fuujin and it draws its power from the life force of the person using it. Normally it is a suicide technique that allows the user to absolutely kill one other being and placing them both at my feet in judgment, however in this case it was different because the forth Hokage changed how it worked slightly and instead of taking the Kyuubi's soul, I ripped as much energy as I could from the Kyuubi and caused its soul and the remainder of its energy to be sealed within you. A fragment of my own energy followed as well to make sure that it didn't escape before your death. The main reason that the sealing was done this way was that the Kyuubi normally doesn't fall under my jurisdiction as it is truly immortal, and as such normally I cannot affect its soul and being. As for the two souls chained to the cage they are fragments from your parents that are here to help reinforce the seal. They have another purpose however that I can't tell you what it is. There are quite a number of things that I could tell you but because of the rules on the intervention of deities into the lives of mortals I shall not. You see in instances like these the information that I could give you would require that ether you offer payment to me for it or I shall suffer a penalty that I do not wish to pay."

Naruto's head was spinning as he committed all that he had been told to memory and asked, "Could you stop for a minute, this is getting hard to take in?" several minutes silence followed as Naruto went over the information that he had been given and got it straight in his head. Finally he said, "Please continue."

"The only reason that I have given you that break is because some of the things that I will impart to you tonight will be hard to understand at first, however if you will not interrupt me again we can be done that much sooner." the Shinigami continued. "Now, I have given you most of the background information that you will need to understand why I brought you here tonight. As I told you earlier a fragment of my energy entered the seal to make sure that the Kyuubi could not escape and so that I could judge him for his crimes, however that is not the only effect that this energy has had upon you. Until you received your headband I kept the abilities locked away, but the fragment of my energy didn't directly interact with yours however some of your energy in close contact with mine has begun mimicking mine. Currently this energy doesn't give you many abilities however this may change with time. Currently you can call upon any souls that are caught between the borders of life and death and you can see the aura of darkness around people who have broken universal laws or who have committed unspeakable atrocities in their lives." He waved his hand and a small clock appeared upon the wall next to the door that read 10:00 as the Shinigami continued, "more than half of this world has at one time or another committed some act of evil and this clock represents how long I will allow you to summon the souls to your mindscape here and you may get more time upon this clock for all the evils that a soul you send to me committed that you had no influence in. those are the powers that you have now however I do not know what other powers you may develop in the future."

"So right now I can call any soul that is between life and death but you are limiting my to an amount of time equivalent to the amount of evil I send you from this world?" Naruto asked as many ideas ran through his head.

"Yes, young Naruto, but the reason that I am putting a limit on how long the souls may be called is because nothing in life or the afterlife is truly free and if you have to work for the time you will appreciate it more." the Shinigami replied.

"So where did the ten hours come from," Naruto asked somewhat confusedly.

"Ah, that time came both from your own actions which have had several very corrupt men killed and the fact that your parents have been helping my with my duties so that I have had more free time than usual these past twelve years." the Shinigami said as if slightly embarrassed about admitting the second part. "Currently the only souls that you may call are the souls of your parents as they are the only ones who built up a debt to me before their deaths."

"Thank you, Shinigami-sama." Naruto said as he bowed to the god.

"Now, I must leave, but I suggest that you have a talk with Kyuubi and then spend five hours with your parents to use up all of your accumulated time." the Shinigami finished before he began fading away.

After the last pieces of the Shinigami disappeared Naruto began moving closer to the cage and asked, "What did he want you to tell me?"

The deep booming voice from earlier answered, "there are several things that are the direct result of things that I or the seal have done but I think that he wanted me to tell you about the fact that your transformation technique is much different than normal. Because of several factors that happened before your birth and after with the seal your body modified itself to take on one of my abilities. The ability of true transformation rather than just of casting an illusion over your body. The main reason that I mentioned this is that after a certain number of times that you transform into the same form your body will lock it in as a default form. You won't be stuck permanently in the form by any means but, if it gets locked in than there is a chance that you could spontaneously transform into the form and be stuck that way for several days."

"So, how many more transformations do I have before that happens?" Naruto asked somewhat worriedly as he had used the technique quite a number of times for pranks as well as the throw off pursuit after pranks.

"That's just it I think that your usage against the Hokage may have tipped the balance, but on the bright side once a transformation becomes permanent this way it no longer requires chakra to hold up and cannot be dispelled." the Kyuubi said its voice betraying its irritation at the situation. "And once you transform and are stuck you'll have to learn a control exercise to maintain which form you wish to be in rather than it altering randomly with your thoughts. The good thing about this ability is that you have an additional form to get into should one of them be damaged because injuries don't carry across the change and the injury will regenerate back to normal at about half speed until the form is no longer injured. The bad thing about this ability is the fact that while all of your abilities pass over none of the resistances that you have trained your body to withstand will pass over."

"And the other thing that you wanted to tell me?" Naruto asked as his mind wrapped around randomly swapping forms every few seconds.

"Since, the Shinigami explained my imprisonment within you several days after the sealing I have done the absolute minimum for you that wasn't required of me or forced by the seal." Kyuubi said its deep booming voice carrying a hint of amusement. "There are a number of things that I could have done differently, however, as I told the Shinigami when I was first imprisoned you haven't done anything very impressive in my eyes so until you do or it involves our imminent survival I will maintain the bare minimum as I have been."

"I can understand that and thank you for what you have done." Naruto replied before a sudden though hit his head. "The Shinigami never did tell how to summon souls to use the time that has accumulated did he."

The Kyuubi laughed evilly as Naruto began listing off ridiculous solutions of how to summon the souls before its voice filled with mirth, at the mention of some of the various funny thoughts that Naruto had thought up, said. "As I understand it to summon them you place your hand on their name which should be on the bottom of the clock."

As Naruto mover over to the clock, he found that there really were names along the bottom of the clock. Kushina Uzumaki followed by a blurring third name and a completely blurred second name. Tapping each of the names he was rewarded by pillars of light and in seconds both of his parents were there having wrapped him in a hug the moment that they had materialized. The following five hours were filled with many stories, a huge amount of advise, and quite a bit of embarrassment for Naruto as his parents made up for the time that they had lost with their son. The worst part was when his mother was exclaiming over the sexy jutsu body that he was apparently stuck with now and how when became excited and started running him through the female "talk" that his father had finished giving him the male version almost an hour earlier. He also found out why part of his mothers name was visible while his fathers was completely blanked out. It was because he knew his mothers maiden name while he could only guess about his fathers name for now. When the five hours were up his parents disappeared in another pillar of light as the clock struck zero. Exhausted Naruto fell into a fitful sleep almost as soon as they left as he had felt a great many more emotions than he normally did. As Naruto's body slowly vanished from his mindscape the Kyuubi couldn't help grinning about how much fun all of the chaos and destruction that Naruto would cause over with everything that he had learned over the last six years but had hidden. Laughter boomed from its cage as it thought of all of the mayhem that would spring from the things that people thought they knew about the blond.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~

The next morning Naruto awoke and blurrily looked at the clock to find that it was almost five minutes after eleven. He was about to write the whole thing off as a dream except for the fact that he was stuck in his sexy jutsu body and he couldn't release the technique and he couldn't retransform back into his normal form. Gathering his things Naruto packed them away into scrolls that he boxed up and then sealed into a large sealing scroll fro their journey across the village to one of the many compounds in the village. One thing that Naruto had been given in the last six years was access to the old Uzumaki compound that had remained empty since his mother had moved out to live with his father. At one point in time the compound had belonged to the Senju clan however when his mother had escaped the fall of whirlpool the matriarch of the Senju clan had given the compound to her as a gift of welcome as it had been built to be close but comfortably far enough from the Senju compound for Mito so that she could invite her relatives to spend time in the village without them being put into rooms in the Senju compound. Mito was fond of her relatives however the same couldn't be said of her husband who wanted some space from his in-laws.

Even though Naruto had known about his owning of the compound he couldn't move onto the property until he was a recognized adult because if he had than the civilian council would have demanded entrance and because of the ways that the laws were written he couldn't have done anything about it no matter what they decided to take. However, with his genin status, that was no longer the case even if it was probationary currently. His genin status meant that he was supposedly allowed more restricted materials than an academy student and as such any and all of his belongings could only be searched and seized with a written order from the current Hokage that was cosigned by at least one clan head or four jonin.

Six years though, Naruto still found it hard to believe that he had come as far as he had in the past six years. Training endlessly, studying scroll and book after scroll and book, and experimenting endlessly to replicate some of the things that the Uzumaki in the past had done.

The compound wasn't very large in comparison to some of the others in the village, however that was because when it had been built it was supposed to make the first Hokage's in-laws, not wanting them to stay for excessive visits. When Kushina had moved in she had modified the house a lot as well as the training ground in the back, currently the training ground was more like a flower garden and though it had fallen into disrepair after his mothers death he had fixed it back up long before. Before the previous night he had hung onto every fact that he could get about his parents and he had come up with only a few facts, his mothers name, her love of gardening and cooking, his parents were powerful ninja, their addiction to ramen, his fathers dream, and the fact that they both died the night he was born. Sure it wasn't much but it was what he had had to go on until he got to the proper rank or age to be given the information. But he had taken the information and ran with it, trying in some way to be close to them. He kept the garden in very good shape with almost professionally grown quality flowers and herbs well tended, he had studied and tried over half of the numerous recipes that he had and he had used shadow clones extensively to train in various things since he learned it when he was eight. But in his mind his greatest achievement was the somewhat mediocre ramen that he could make from scratch after spending a six month stint working under Tuchi Ichraku.

Shadow clone training for almost four and a half years with almost two hundred going on average and it was plain to see that Naruto had quite the number of tricks that he had yet to uncover.

After he got the last of his things he still kept in his apartment settled where they belonged in the house it took Naruto three days to grasp and control how to swap forms. However it wasn't until a week later that he was able to get good enough control of the ability to not change forms unless he wanted to.

This increase in control was a good thing as the day after he managed to acquire it, one of the few people who knew about his change of residence stopped by.

~~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So, still trying to get the right setup for that control technique?" a voice intruded on his meditating causing him to fall the three feet to the ground.

Scowling slightly Naruto returned, "Couldn't you have left me alone for another few minutes, Tenten? I almost held myself on that platform for half an hour."

"Ya, you have told me that, but you missed your delivery yesterday." Tenten replied, "And, you said that you would have that other thing ready for me soon so I decided to check up on it."

"The new sword you commissioned?" Naruto asked as he moved toward the back door to the house. Inwardly he was annoyed because of the fact that whenever Tenten was in his workshop she was fan girlish to a high degree. He usually tried to keep his deliveries on schedule so that she wouldn't have an excuse to go into the workshop. Two years since they had become friends and he had showed her the hidden training ground below the compound and she had first seen his workshop. That had been a terrifying day with how hard she had begged him to let her use some of the weapons that he had made. In the end, they had come to a deal that he would sell so many a month to her grandfathers shop and she could get her weapons from there. One thousand kunai, three thousand shuriken, one thousand senbon, and various other items a month, delivered on the second Friday of each month.

Moving to the stairs to the lower level Naruto was surprised that Tenten hadn't already beaten him to the ladder to the training ground. In the basement of the house there was a trapdoor that led down to a hidden underground training ground that he had used for secret training for almost as long as he had known about the compound. He didn't use it when he first started exploring the house because he didn't know about it but when he was cleaning the house he found the loose section of flooring in the basement. Opening it he had been shocked to find a ladder down into a dark pit. Along the edge there was a seal that powered lights in the secret underground room. Since then Naruto had learned of two other similar training grounds, one under the Senju compound and the other secreted away for the Hokages and those they trusted to maintain their training and develop new attacks hidden from spies. Within this training ground he had found out where his mother had kept her forges and extra weaponry. Going back almost three hundred years the Uzumaki clan had in almost all of its branches taught the art of creating weapons as well as how to use those weapons. Every member of the family had been taught how to perform the basics of the craft even if they never advanced past that point and once Naruto had found that out he had pushed himself well past the basics.

Finally reaching the actual training grounds Naruto was pulled out of his thoughts and memories as he looked around the huge underground room. Hordes of clones were moving everywhere around the room doing what looked like anything and everything. Half the giant room looked like it had been damaged and repaired repeatedly while the other had been segmented off and stone walls thrown up to keep each area separate from the others.

Looking at the clone army working on the various things that they were in the damaged section Naruto nodded to himself because it looked like all of his projects were on track so far. He moved toward what seemed to be a hallway between the walled off areas with Tenten trailing after him as she tried to make sense of what the clones were training in.

Tenten always enjoyed coming to this room after the first time she had come in here and seen a shadow clone army of her friend working on various things. Of coarse at first she hadn't understood what was going on but having a friend who could make hundreds of expendable mobile practice dummies was almost heaven in her mind.

Reaching the doorway to the storage room for completed weapons, Naruto pulled down one of his larger sealing scrolls and began gathering all of the weapons that he needed to fill the current months order before stopping to ask, "Did you have anything to add to this months order?"

"Oh, I had completely forgotten but anbu Neko stopped by and said that she had finally saved up enough for the one katana that she has been drooling over in the catalogue you left in the shop." Tenten answered as she was broken out of dreams of the thousands of projectile weaponry around her flying toward targets.

"Tenten, you know that the weapon that she wants isn't actually made until its ordered because of the more personal nature of weapons like that." Naruto said as he got the last items from their storage shelves and packed them closely enough to seal into the scroll that he had gotten earlier. Carrying the now full scroll toward the door, Naruto stopped at a small shelf that only had two scrolls on it. Pulling the scrolls off the shelf he continued toward the door. Giving her all three of the scrolls he said, "There is the order and the sword that you commissioned from me two weeks ago. The last scroll are some techniques that you can use with it as well as the instructions on how to maintain the blade at maximum efficiency for battle."

The shriek that emanated from the room could put all but the most persistent of fan girlish shrieks to shame for its shear volume and decibel. It left Naruto's head ringing and by the time he could think straight again Tenten was gone.

The rest of the week leading up to team assignments was almost bleak in comparison as most of the time Naruto was making armies of shadow clones to train in all kinds of things and to continue his on going projects and training himself in many odd ways. The one last bright point of the week was the day before team assignments when he went to turn in his paperwork for ninja registration and he met the Hokage's grandson. What had followed was a testament to how weird the world was sometimes as he taught Konohamaru the sexy jutsu and gave him a couple scrolls that he quickly copied from memory for about five different chakra control exercises and another detailing several e-rank techniques in each of the five elements that were useful for numerous things while still being easy to learn and use for the academy student. Naruto should have known that his luck couldn't have held out that long and Konohamaru's jonin tutor showed up and got into a fierce argument with Konohamaru about the best way to become Hokage with Konohamaru being firmly on Naruto's side of the thoughts on the matter. The matter ended with a huge burst of chakra and an huge nosebleed for Ebisu. So all in all Naruto had had a nice week and even a last day before team assignments.


	3. Chapter 3 team formation

Do not own Naruto in any way shape or form

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Pulling on a different style of clothes after wearing orange jumpsuits for so long was a strange feeling for Naruto, but he had had this outfit ready for months and it would be a shame not to wear it as he had intended. A jacket that looked similar to his old one but in black with white over the shoulders, silver flames running in a circle around his chest about an inch below his shoulders, and the red spiral crest of the Uzumaki over his shoulders and back, all above black shinobi pants that had many pockets running down the outside back of the legs. From the spiral on each of his shoulders was what almost looked to be half a sword hilt as well as the fact that he had four kunai handles that jutted from the bottom of the jacket across the back where they could be easily grabbed. None of his pockets seemed to have anything in them but with the storage seals inscribed in each of his pockets, he was carrying a lot more than people thought. Naruto had once tried to flatten his hair and that had turned out to be a disaster. When he had looked in the mirror he had looked evil in a bad way.

Dressed and ready to go, Naruto swung by the kitchen and grabbed about a half a dozen wrapped bars from a box in the fridge and stuffed them into his pocket and activated the storage seal in it making them disappear. Pulling another bar out, he unwrapped one end and bit into it and almost yelled in delight, "I got one of the ramen flavored ones." Swinging by the basement he made several hundred clones in the training room before leaving and locking the house. Exiting the gate, he almost without paying attention, activated the short term barrier around the gate. Around the rest of the property there was a long term barrier, however there were ways to get thru the two gates. Munching on the eight inch bar in his mouth he made four hand signs as the world blurred around him and he disappeared. About a minute and a half later he seemed to fade back into existence in front of the academy. Walking up to the classroom he thought that it was too quiet for the day of assignments. Walking into the room he was surprised to find it empty. Looking up at the clock he was shocked to see it reading 5:15 in the morning, so he was six hours early for assignments and he had to kill six hours. Taking the empty wrapper out of his mouth, he tossed it into the trashcan and walked up to his desk and pulled out a journal on the experiments one of the Uzumaki had done almost two hundred years ago to learn how to correctly integrate seals.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Naruto snored on, others began to arrive after ten thirty and though some looked at Naruto strangely because of his snoring and for him using a book as a pillow. The pool of saliva that was under his head seemed to prove that he had been there for awhile. Among the girls in the class his new wardrobe choice was met with blatant approval when compared to what he used to wear. Many of them sat nearby and began to gossip about Naruto's apparent development of sense regarding fashion. From there, they descended into talking about what they thought the male members of the class should wear, this caused a shudder to collectively run down every one of the boy's backs. It wasn't until one of the girls suggested that they get Sasuke to wear a thong as his ninja uniform that a fight broke out, as every one of the girls who heard thought about it for a moment and then decided that as they were perfect for Sasuke they should be the only ones to see such a glorious sight. Every one of the boys who had heard the comment however looked green in the face and about ready to puke, including ironically Sasuke because of some of the earlier things that they had suggested as well as the thong idea.

Naruto who had still been sleeping peacefully was woken when he was hit in the face by a right hook from Sakura and a yell of, "Move baka so that I can sit next to Sasuke."

Rubbing sleep from his eyes and waking up enough to dodge the second strike to the head Naruto asked through his yawns, "What's, yawn, going on, yawn?"

Finally managing to connect again to the still sleepy blond, Sakura knocked him to the floor and got into another fight over who was going to sit in the suddenly empty seat next to Sasuke. Getting up and rubbing the last of sleep from his eyes Naruto looked at the warring girls, sighed and retook his seat getting a screech of protest from Sakura and a yell of annoyance from Ino Yamanaka. The noise they make stopped abruptly as the door slammed open and Iruka entered the room and the book which had been Naruto's pillow disappeared into his jacket and a small bit of smoke was released from the open jacket.

"Iruka-sensei what is Naruto-baka doing here when he didn't pass the exam," Sakura said loudly as she hadn't paid attention when she had seen Naruto and hadn't noticed the headband that he wore.

"Sakura if you would please take a seat. I would like to give out team assignments," Iruka began politely before continuing, "but, if you must know, Mizuke marked down Naruto's tests wrong on purpose so that he could assign a fake bonus section that Naruto thought he had to pass to graduate. The short story of it is that Mizuke was a traitor and he had a plan to use Naruto to steal something for him and use him as a scapegoat in his getaway. Luckily Naruto helped us catch him and according to Hokage-sama that in itself qualified him to genin rank."

~~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A little while earlier in a meeting room in the kage tower

Nine jonin were milling around the room waiting for the hokage, were speaking in idle conversation about what they thought that they would teach their teams should they pass. The door opened and the hokage and two anbu entered the room carrying a scroll that held the team assignments. Everything went normally up until the last listing as the hokage said, "Team twelve, Naruto Uzumaki."

"Hokage-sama, if I may who else is to be placed on team twelve?" Kurenai asked while voicing the question that they were all asking themselves.

"Currently no one as we had one more graduate than we had thought and Naruto was the last one to receive his headband, so for now he will be a one man team. the hokage replied. "However, for the paperwork I will be assigning myself to the sensei position because it will make the paperwork easier for now. In effect however he will be doing missions and training on his own with evaluations when I deem appropriate by myself or a jonin that I select so that I may advise him on what to train in next. That is the current arraignment that we will be working under, however there is a good chance that if a spot on an appropriate team opens up he will most likely be moved there. As for teammates well currently he just won't have any because as I said he is the odd man out among the graduates, and the genin pool is also dry of good candidates because of the recent surge in those in the pool resigning from the ninja forces and retiring back to civilian life. The last seven have already had their paperwork filled out to be moved to the hospital, or cryptography divisions which leaves three in the pool who not only haven't finished their remedial lessons, but they also don't have the right skills for an assault/assassination squad that Naruto's skills as they are now lend him toward.

Most of the jonin nodded as they took in the information and began leaving the meeting room to ready themselves to meet their prospective students and planning how they needed to get ready for the test that they were about to give.

"You can come in now, Kakashi." the Hokage stated looking toward the window which was opened a crack.

The window opened and a silver haired man with his headband covering one eye climbed into the room. With a mask covering his mouth he looked at the hokage and his one viable eye closed and turned into a smile shape before he said, "Good morning Hokage-sama and who has been placed on my team this year?"

"Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, and Kiba Inuzuka." the hokage said while thinking back on all of the teams that Kakashi had failed over the years. "How long were you outside the window Kakashi?"

"I got here not long before your explanation about why Naruto was on his own for now." Kakashi replied. "Although I cannot say that I agree with your reasoning."

"Yes I remember your request for Naruto to be placed on your team, however when it was reported that he failed and that one of the students that the instructors thought was going to fail passed I rearranged the teams slightly." Sarutobi said as he took out his pipe and lit it before taking a long puff. "By the time that the Mizuke incident was over and I found out the full details of the test I had already asked Tsumi Inuzuka about changing the team lineups because Mitsuni Krurma would do better under Kurenai than under you. Besides it might be better if you aren't Naruto's fulltime sensei because of all of the emotional issues that you need to work through from twelve years ago that you have been putting off. Oh, and Kakashi, if you do pass this team, remember the way that your sensei taught you and you should do alright teaching, and if you remember that you were a progeny and that your students might not progress as fast as you did."

"Yes, Hokage-sama," Kakashi replied with these thoughts swirling around in his head before he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~

The class was silent and Iruka began to list off teams while Naruto began checking off the students in the class mentally as he tried to figure out what each team would specialize in if it was successful in passing the next test. It wasn't until the first five teams had been called that Naruto realized that he had miscounted earlier when he had been trying to figure out who would be of which team and that there would be one person left over. He realized that considering how he hadn't graduated the normal way that he probably would be the extra person in the class. He then wondered weather he would be held back to the next graduating class or just dumped into the genin pool to start with. At that thought Naruto's thoughts turned to what he knew about the genin pool.

Most of the time when a team failed because it didn't meet the assigned sensei's requirements it was added to the genin pool and from there, the new genin would attend remedial classes in what the sensei who failed them said that were their greatest weaknesses. The pool was overseen by at least four jonin level ninja at all times however these jonin have one major difference from other jonin. The jonin who oversee the genin pool are for one reason or another barred from a more active duty and as such it is mostly overseen by those elderly ninja or those who are injured in such a way that it ends their active ninja career. Once in this category many genin ninja never move up the ranks not because of any combat skills but rather different organizations that are less inclined to physical efforts, recruit rather heavily from this part of the program. The hospitals and medic ninja recruit rather heavily from this section even if only a third of them become anything other than a nurse with a few minor healing techniques and can only manage to heal minor cuts and bruises. Even with them only being able to do that much medically speaking it is a boon as they can take the minor cases as well as slow blood loss on more serious cases while more experienced medics take care of the more intricate details.

As these thoughts ran through his head he almost missed team seven's names being called by Iruka, "Team seven, Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, and Kiba Inuzuka, under Kakashi Hatake. Team eight, Shino Aburame, Hinata Hyūga, and Mitsuni Krurma, under Kurenai Yuhi. Team nine is still full from last semester. Team ten, Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, and Chōji Akimichi, under Asuma Sarutobi. Team eleven is still full from last semester. Team twelve is Naruto Uzumaki and as he is the odd man out he will report to Hokage-sama for further instructions. However, for now I'm told that he will be on a team alone and will do missions and such alone up to a certain rank."

"Wait a minute why does the dobe get to be on a team by himself, when I an elite Uchiha am stuck on a team with everyone else?" Sasuke asked arrogantly.

"Ya, why does the baka get special treatment when Sasuke-kun doesn't?" Sakura almost screeched the question in her haste to be seen agreeing with Sasuke.

"I'm not sure on all the specifics, but I'm sure that Hokage-sama has his reasons that he set the teams up this way." Iruka said with his tone implying that he wouldn't answer any more questions about it. "Now, if you all will excuse me, I need to get to my follow up appointment at the hospital to have them check and make sure that the muscles in my back reconnected properly after what Mizuke did to me when Naruto and I apprehended him. Now you have an hour break before your jonin sensei will be here to pick you up."

As Iruka walked toward the door he missed the glares that Sasuke and most of the girls in the class sent Naruto when he wasn't looking. After Iruka had left the room a few moments passed before Sakura decided to jump up and confront Naruto on his showing up of her beloved Sasuke. When she got to him she almost screeched, "How dare you ignorant baka, show up Sasuke like that. He's so much better than you that your skills couldn't bring you up to the level of his shoes. Compared to him you should just quit being a ninja, dead last."

"Sakura," Naruto began in a calm voice, "you do know that even with my abysmal grades that I still did better than you on the physical portions of the academy curriculum and that even if you got the kunoichi of the year title that with all of the academic portions being your specialty you could end up be shunted into code breaking, an assistant at the tower, or if you are really unlucky you may be pushed into infiltration. I would normally say something about genjutsu, or medical jutsu but with how quickly you tire you must have very small reserves of chakra and even if in their lower tier those two professions don't require large amounts of chakra to advance in them you have to have at least decent reserves."

Shocked at some of the things that Naruto had brought up and then angry Sakura swung her fist at him while screaming, "Baka."

Dodging the hit, Naruto said cheerfully, "Well I must be going, see everyone later." As he finished his statement a swirl of water came from nowhere and he vanished into it. Several seconds later the water stopped swirling and dropped onto Sakura before she was given time to react. Over half the class started to laugh at the situation that Sakura found herself in, drenched with quite a bit of her makeup running. Hinata felt something shift in her jacket as she got up and moved. A small scroll fell into her hand as the tried to find what it was.

~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~

Naruto appeared out of another swirl of water across the street on top of the building across from the academy in total thirty feet away from where he started. Pulling out another bar from the storage seal in his pocket he started munching on it as he leisurely started toward the tower. As he walked through the doors the secretary manning the front desk glared at him which he returned with a smile and tossing the now empty wrapper into the trash. Pulling out the last one in his pocket he started on it as he moved toward the stairs.

Heading up the three flights of stairs to the Hokage's office, he found the door closed and locked before a head pocked out of a filing room down the hall and the secretary yelled to him, "Hokage-sama is having lunch with his grandson and is supposed to be back in about half an hour."

Pacing for a minute, Naruto decided to just wait rather than attempt to find the hokage, so he pulled back out the journal he had been reading earlier and continue from where he had stopped before sleep had claimed him. And so for the next hour he fell into the mechanics of integrated seals inserted into weapons.

Finishing the journal he looked up at the clock and was surprised to find that a little over an hour had passed and that the door to the Hokage's office was standing open with Sarutobi already sitting at his desk and working diligently at his paperwork. Getting up Naruto moved to one of the chairs if front of the Hokage's desk and waited until Sarutobi finished with the paperwork he was working on.

Looking up from his finished stack of paperwork and motioning for the anbu to leave he got up and closed the door. Returning to his seat he started, "Ah, Naruto, when I arrived back from lunch and found you so deeply reading that journal I was wondering whether I would get to update you file correctly today. Now according to the filing system that is currently in use by the village, a genin's skills are updated after every C or higher ranked mission and even then their skills only have to be updated to show what were used during the mission. Now as for taking out Mizuke, it is a stroke of luck that you were not considered as a shinobi then otherwise your public shinobi file would reflect the skills that you used. As it stands now though your public file only shows your academy standings and only about half a dozen people in the village know your true potential. Now I know that you understand and can do the basics from the academy except for the basic clone technique. However for my private files what are the other skills that you know?"

Scratching the back of his head Naruto replied, "Ya there are still a lot of things that I need to work on but with all of the training that I've done it seems weird that you know almost none of it considering how much you seem to know about everything else."

"Naruto, you know that before you graduated from the academy that you were under the authority of the civilian council." Sarutobi began," and that due to some of the older laws of the village they can request any and all information about the skills that an academy student shows. There are a number of things that I have managed to hide over the years with the help of the fire daimyo but because of the records being held at a number of places it would be easy for them to acquire you academy records as well as your public ninja portfolio and beyond that on any academy student or civilian I am required by village law to provide them with an accurate report of their skills."

"Whatever, about my skills," Naruto broke into the explanation. "I am at journeyman level in sealing techniques and hold a level eight restricted sealing license as well as a level six forbidden license. I am a natural wind element and I constantly work to improve my element manipulation. My secondary elements are water and earth and while I cannot work with them as well as wind I work with them constantly as well. Fire element and lightning element are my worst elements and while I can do them somewhat mine will almost always lose with them to someone who has put more time into learning them. I know roughly three to five techniques in every one of the five primary elements except wind in which I know about twenty. I also know about thirty non-elemental techniques. Genjutsu is a weak are for me and while I might not be as bad as I pretended to be in the academy, I'm only roughly at average chūnin level in dispelling them and I don't really attempt to cast them anymore because I am horrible at them. Taijutsu is currently around mid genin when I actually try however that is with my restriction seals in place when I release them it is at roughly high chūnin, however I need to spar more for it to be truly effective. There are a few more to that list however I cannot use them effectively enough to count them completely yet. Overall just in skill rank wise I can match up to most of the special jonin and some of the regular jonin on the village, however, in practice every one of them and a great number of chūnin would beat me because while I have the skills, I lack experience in using them in a combat situation or for that matter almost any use of them outside of the times that I practice them in my training. Beyond that I really don't know where to rank myself on any of my other skills."

Sarutobi who had been marking things down to add to his personal file for Naruto was somewhat in shock of the sheer number so skills and talents that Naruto had managed to learn from just scrolls and if Naruto was being his usual self there were a number of gaps on that list. "I see and I assume that you can provide proof that you have those sealing licenses if needed?"

Naruto nodded and said, "They are at home hung up on the wall of the bedroom that I'm now using at the old Uzumaki compound and they should be safe enough with all of the traps that are set to activate if someone who isn't keyed into the seal matrix tries to break into the house."

"Other than that your list gives me an idea of where to begin with the tests that you will need to take for the completion of this file." Sarutobi began before a comment by Iruka brought something else to his mind that he needed the answer to. "Also, where did you get those kunai and the sword that you used in Iruka's report because the only ones like that, that I can think of are the horribly expensive ones from the demon's fang weapons shop?"

"Oh, I knew that I was forgetting something." Naruto said with a thoughtful look on his face. "After I got access to the compound and started really looking through the things that Daimyo-sama gave me from my parents I found out that nearly every one of my mothers family knew at least the basics of blacksmithing and making their own weapons. Over the time that they compiled the scroll they came across and developed a huge number of advancements in the blacksmithing craft and in some of my free time I took it up as a hobby and made a huge number of weapons and such. You probably wouldn't have heard of them being on sale at that weapon shop if Tenten from team nine didn't know that I made them and convinced me to sell so many a month to her grandfathers weapon shop."

"Ah, the 'weapon mistress' of team nine, that would explain it." Sarutobi said as he took out his pipe and filled it from a small brown bag that he pulled from the same pocket as his pipe. Using his act of smoking to give himself an excuse as he tried to get his thoughts in order. Running his eyes over the paper again he was still surprised that Naruto had come as far as he had. "I take it that she is the reason that your taijutsu and weapon skills are as good as they are?"

"Ya, she stops over at the compound when she has free time and can think of a good excuse on why I should let her in and most of the time she comes up with a good enough one to get in and down to the training ground to look at the forges and at the rooms that contain the finished weapons." Naruto said as his face took on a somewhat sheepish look. "If you heard along with the more common weapons I make somewhat custom weapons and it is because of Tenten's insistence that I can at least understand and use the basics of each of the weapons that I've made."

"We seem to have gotten off of our original topic." Sarutobi said as he took a deep drag from his pipe. "Tomorrow morning at nine I will have a shinobi of my choosing here to arrange a test of your skills so that we will know where you stand. Good afternoon, Naruto"

Taking the dismissal for what it was Naruto left the office to get ready for the small meeting that he had set up for next Ichiraku ramen that he had to be to in just a couple hours. Thinking back he could remember all of the times that he had spotted Hinata following him and spying on his public persona's skills. It wasn't that he truly minded what she was doing, but he could see the crush that she had on him. Right now he just wasn't ready for a relationship like the one that she would need to correct the damage that her family had done to her. Just because he wasn't ready to be in a true relationship didn't mean however that he couldn't start off as her friend and see where that led them.

~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~

He was running again. It happened all to often when he forgot something or when he got absorbed in his experimenting. Today it was when he was working on breaking down an adept level seal and while in the end he had managed it he still was too slow on breaking down the formula for the seal to be really considered at adept level in sealing. Currently though he had to get halfway across the village in under two minutes so that he wouldn't be late. Getting into view of Ichiraku ramen he could make out Hinata even at this distance because of her hiding habits. As he moved closer he could see Kiba with her because of Akamaru being on the ground next to him. Getting within hearing distance he was angered to hear.

"Come on Hinata, I just don't see what you like about that loser. Wouldn't you rather go out with a guy like me?" Kiba said arrogantly. He had grabbed her arm and was attempting to pull her away while his other hand attempted to get at what her jacket had hidden from the world.

Using all of the speed that his training allowed him while not releasing the restriction seals on his body, Naruto grabbed Kiba's hand that was attempting to grope Hinata and with a single crack broke his wrist. A second later he was sent to see if throwing him over a building would teach him how to fly. Turning to catch Hinata who had started to fall after Kiba was forcefully torn away from her .at the last second. Hinata was treated to Naruto's grinning face as he caught her and helped her stand on her own again. Dazedly she almost didn't notice as she was lead away from the site of the incident and the glares that could be seen directed their way from most of the civilians.

Roughly a half an hour later Naruto had directed them to a small clearing just to the side of the Monument and pulling out a couple scrolls he unsealed and genitally laid down a large blanket. Next, he unsealed a picnic basket and a small ice chest. As he laid out the meal Hinata was surprised that there wasn't any ramen anywhere in it. As he pulled a bottle out of the ice chest and sat down on one side of the blanket, he motions for her to take a drink and sit on the other side of the blanket. What followed was an almost silent meal as every time Hinata worked up the courage to say something, Naruto would gesture for her to be quiet and would point out of the clearing at where they had a good view of the setting sun. time passed and as the sun sank lower on the horizon they finished up the picnic meal that Naruto had brought in almost complete silence.

Finally Naruto spoke after more than an hours silence, "Hinata, I'm sorry but what you want from me right now I'm just not ready to give. I've known about your crush for several years now and do want to know why I asked you out here tonight?"

Hinata felt both confused and sad at his words but shyly nodded because she really did want to know why he had asked here out here.

"To be blunt the main reason that I don't return your feelings is that I don't know you." Naruto said with his face still so that he wouldn't betray the emotions that attempted to show there. "There is a possibility that I might if I were to really know you but right now I just don't know you all that well. Another reason is that like most people our age I just am not ready for the hardships and commitment that come with a relationship yet but in two or three years I might be ready to try dating then if you would like. For now though I would like it if we could be friends so that in time if anything comes of it it will come naturally but if not than well we would both have another friend."

The first two reasons came as somewhat a shock to Hinata but they made sense as she thought about them. The third reason was something that she had known but just hadn't made the connection to in her own mind because it mirrored some of the thoughts she had had about Sasuke for some time. And with his last statement her mind was almost overwhelmed with the thought that she hadn't lost her chance to win his heart yet.

Seeing the look in Hinata's eyes and recognizing it from the constant looks in Sasuke's fan girls, Naruto decided that he needed to reinforce his message to get through to Hinata. "Hinata," he began, "as much as you may like me, I really don't know you all that well and if you want even the possibility of being friends, you should put most of your crush on hold for right now because I'm just not ready for a relationship right now. If you truly want the relationship it would be best if we just became friends for now."

It took almost until the sun finished setting but he managed to convince Hinata that the best chance for a relationship with him would be to be his friend for now. She was still very shy about things and he could tell that her crush was far from gone by the way that she had acted. All in all it was a good start for the help that he planned to give her with her confidence, after all she was one of the few people who liked him for him and didn't let the attitude of the village taint her perceptions. Although throughout their conversations the feeling of slight activation of seals was a bit disconcerting. Using one of the more obscure techniques that he knew, Naruto cast it on Hinata when she wasn't looking and watched as its results appeared in a blank scroll that he had been carrying. Quickly furling and hiding the scroll from view he carried on their conversation and kept trying to at least make the friendship work.

~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

After he got home that night he made his way down to the training room and spent about an hour practicing chakra control before taking almost another hour to dispel all of the clones that he had working on things. Making another group of clones tired him out enough that he was ready for bed. A quick meal and he was in bed with weird dreams running through his head.


	4. Chapter 4

Do not own Naruto in any way shape or form

Double update today because I'm going to try and update every week for now. Back when I wrote the prologue I really had no plan for this story and recently as I've actually been writing the double update for today is because I'm not going to be updating next week.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Waking up was fun for Naruto this morning because as he shifted to get up he found out that he had shifted in his sleep and as a result he fell head first to the floor. After a quick trip to the bathroom, he was in the kitchen pulling out six more of the individually wrapped bars and stuffing them in his pocket. Pulling out another he muttered, "Almost out going to have to have clones make more." before biting into the one in his hands. Leaving the wrapped part hanging from his mouth, he swiftly moved to the training ground hidden below the compound that he lived in now, and made about half of the clones that he normally did because he knew that there was going to be a test this morning and that he may need his chakra for the test.

Continuing to munch on his breakfast, Naruto worked on breaking down an adept level seal. It took him almost an hour to break down the seal. However it was still a significant improvement over his normal time in breaking down seals of that level. With only about half an hour until the meeting with the hokage, he decided that it might be best if he didn't start breaking down another seal so regretfully he exited the training area and started making his way toward the kage tower.

He arrived in the waiting room with almost twenty minutes to spare and dug out another bar from his pocket and stuffed an end into his mouth and hungrily began chewing. Guessing that the hokage would be busy for now he pulled out another adept level seal and started to break it down.

When Sarutobi opened his door to let Naruto in for the meeting with the jonin who would be the first to test his skills, he saw that Naruto was in the middle of breaking down a very complex seal with the jonin who was supposed to test him standing behind him trying to make sense of how the blond was breaking the seal.

Waiting the half an hour more that it took him to break down the seal with the Jonin learning more about seals in that half an hour than he had learned in the last five years. Finishing with his sealing work, Naruto looked up and was surprised that he had yet again made himself late for his meeting with the hokage by becoming distracted and losing track of time. As he tried to stutter out an apology he was cut off by the hokage who said, "Now isn't the time for apologies because I was treating that as a test to make sure that the information about your sealing skills was correct. Besides, I'm fairly sure that Shikaku was most interested in seeing how a higher level sealing can be broken down. In fact, if I remember correctly Shikaku never advanced past the bottom of apprentice level in sealing."

"Troublesome," the older man said as he scratched the back of his head. "But, you are right I never did advance in sealing past when I learned to make exploding notes on the fly. Knowing the basics was fine for me but anything past that and I would be called in for consultations about seals and that would have been more troublesome than the punishments that my mother used to give me."

"To start his tests this morning Shikaku, I've employed Gai to have his student Lee race him around through the obstacle coarse that you directed be built for today." the Sandaime said in a somewhat cheerful tone. "Now, unless one of you has a bright idea on how to decrease my paperwork would you please leave my office."

"I might have an idea," Naruto said somewhat hesitantly as he scratched the back of his head. Seeing the look on Sarutobi's face he quickly continued, "I know that there is a law about using clones to sign paperwork for you as the chance of forgeries being slipped into the stacks is higher that way but my thoughts are to have shadow clones look over each paperwork and write and attach a note to all of the paperwork that they feel should be signed. I Know that you throw out about a quarter of each stack as something you refuse to sign and there is no law that states that you can't have shadow clones sort your paperwork while you physically sign it."

A thoughtful look appeared on Sarutobi's face as he thought it over. Then with a grin he made a cross shaped seal and with three puffs of smoke there were four of him in the room with the three shadow clones started working diligently on sorting and reading the paperwork. A relived expression crossed over his face as if a slight burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He said, "Thank you for the idea of using clones that way Naruto and I will see to it that you are rewarded at some point in the future but for now it would be best if you were to start you test. Gai and Lee have agreed to meet you in about ten minutes on training ground fifteen."

"I'll see you in a couple of hours Naruto," Shikaku said as he smiled and disappeared in a puff of smoke showing that he was never there in the first place but rather a shadow clone taking his place.

"See you later, old man." Naruto said with a grin as he pulled out another wrapped bar from his pocket and unwrapping one end he bit into it, letting the uneaten part hang from his out as he grinned and formed some hand seals. In a swirl of wind and empty ramen bowls he was gone in an unusual movement technique.

"Looking about his office at the empty ramen containers Sarutobi couldn't help but mutter to himself, "I wonder how he did that and if other things could be used?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~

After an exhaustive couple hours of racing Lee through an obstacle course while Lee had his weights on and Naruto didn't remove his seals, Naruto was helped over to the Nara compound where Shikaku was waiting for him with a restful brain busting game of shoji which he lost. He was later told by Shikaku that he lost in just seven moves less than Shikamaru's average for losing. After letting his body rest while playing shoji he was ready to go again and asked to demonstrate several of the techniques that he liked best in his arsenal. Showing off the techniques that he had used on Mizuke and a C rank technique from each element, Naruto was told that even if that had been the extent of his ninjutsu that it would qualify him for a rookie chūnin level in the branch of ninja arts.

After than he was let go for the day and told to report back to the Nara home the next morning he was told that the Sandaime would have an anbu stationed outside his home who would rate his sneaking abilities in the morning.

The next morning Naruto completely stumped the watcher as he didn't see anyone leave the house that morning. In truth Naruto had used an old escape tunnel that led to training ground seventeen and just been semi stealthy. When told that he had used an escape tunnel, Shikaku blinked and then almost fell out of his lawn chair where he had been cloud watching. With a stern warning not to use it again the following day Shikaku started the days tests and almost ran Naruto into the ground until around midday when Yoshino Nara rudely interrupted the session with a pan upside the head to Shikaku and practically ordered them to join a freshly returned from team training Shikamaru at the table. Naruto tried to raise a protest that he had brought a lunch with him however all this got him was a lump on the head and being dragged to the table by Yoshino.

After lunch Naruto faced Shikamaru in a Shoji match that lasted well over two hours until Shikamaru narrowly pulled out a victory. At that point Shikaku told him politely that for the next several days that he would spend his mornings at the Nara compound until they had nailed down where all of his skills lay and what sorts of higher level missions that he would be best suited for. As he was released for the day Shikaku told him that there are standards that the leaf ninja must complete to advance in rank and one of the lower level ones are at least one hundred D rank missions and that while some people did make chūnin without completing it, they wind up finishing the missions solo before they are allowed to move into chūnin missions.

The next two weeks were much the same but after the first day Naruto would do about five missions a day in the afternoons with the help of shadow clones. All throughout this he still had clones training in the underground training room. It wasn't until the end of the two weeks that Shikaku told him as he was leaving the Nara compound that the testing was done to the Hokage's satisfaction and that he would no longer report there in the mornings but rather get his orders from the Sandaime directly.

~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That night after he got home from his daily missions was when he found the scroll that contained the findings on the seals that had been placed on Hinata. All of them were below journeyman level sealing so it only took him a couple minutes to figure out all fifteen of the seals. What he found had him leaking killing intent so thick and strong that the Kyuubi while resting on its haunches in the seal began laughing and wondering just what had made its container so furious. Even though he was in a reinforced underground training ground a great deal of his killing intent managed to reach the surface in spurts and almost overwhelmed whoever was in the areas that it happened to be released in. It took several moments but eventually his rage cooled and he started going over the seals and some of his more weird and rare sealing notes to find out how to counter the seals that had been placed on Hinata. It took him well until after midnight to finish putting together the information that he had gotten off of the scroll as well as make a report to the hokage about what he had found.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning, he arrived early enough to the tower that Sarutobi wasn't in his office and wasn't expected for another hour. He just paced around the office waiting for Sarutobi to get there for forty-five minutes before he got there.

"Hokage-sama if you would look this over please and do so privately," Naruto started with his voice showing signs of barley suppressed rage. As the anbu left the room they wondered what could have gotten Naruto so mad and why the Sandaime was starting to get mad as well. As the last anbu left Naruto began laying down a sealing privacy barrier which he finished around the same time that Sarutobi did with the scroll.

"Is all of this accurate?" Sarutobi demanded as he popped open a secret compartment in his desk and pulled out a bottle of sake and started to drink straight from the bottle.

"Yes." Naruto said as his voice still betrayed his anger. "I used a technique that will make copies of all of the seals on an object or person and place them on a blank scroll and as soon as I deciphered them I looked up the counters and brought all of this to you."

"Nothing in the clan rules of the Hyūga state anything about any other seals other than the caged bird for the branch house and on her graduation day she should have been informed of any and all seals on her person that were placed there by her parents." Sarutobi said while thinking hard. "The only reasons that I can think of seals being set up this way would be ether if Hiashi wanted to sell his daughter off in a political marriage of if another member of the main house wants to take over as the leaders of the clan."

"Honestly, that's not what has me so angry, what has me angry is out of the entire clan there are only two elders who can legally make and use apprentice level seals because they never passed the tests or got the licenses from the sealing guild." Naruto ranted. "Even if they have the skill to place the seal it is worthy of a death sentence because all of these seals are on the forbidden list. The list that holds seals which should not be placed on people without there knowledge or consent. I hold a forbidden license meaning that if I know the seal then with the knowledge of who it's going on I am allowed to place seals similar to these, however these were placed by amateurs and although they turned out correctly they could have come out very wrong."

"How wrong could removing them go?" Sarutobi asked with a frown on his face. "And how long would they take to remove?"

"The seals never set well into her body because of their placement being off as it could mess up her development even more than the seal already is. However most chūnin or jonin medical specialists would be able at negate most of that." Naruto replied after thinking a moment. "As for how long, it could take anywhere from twenty to thirty hours to remove them because of how wrong they are setting on her body. If they were placed correctly than it would only take about four hours."

Sarutobi began muttering about incompetent elders while making clones to sort through his paperwork. A little while later after he had watched Naruto pace his office for awhile he said, "Naruto, leave this alone for now beyond gathering more information on the subject and so long as the seals are doing no immediate harm we will leave them for now. In the near future you will get a joint mission with team eight during which you will remove the seals."

Thinking a moment Naruto answered, "Yes Hokage-sama."

As he turned to leave Sarutobi said, "And keep working on those D rank missions because they have been helping with your image around town. Besides you still need to finish the minimum hundred so that you can join the chūnin exams."

Flashing a bright grin back into the room that hid part of his anger at what someone had done to his new friend Naruto started toward the mission office for another batch of D rank missions. At the mission office he got another five missions and started off on one to dig a new well for a farmer whose well had dried up and now wanted one on the other side of his property nearer his house. A chūnin who specialized in water techniques had already confirmed that there was an underground river under that section of the property. In fact the only reason that it was a D rank was that it had to be done with physical labor because earth manipulation would have blocked the river that they were trying to tap. That didn't mean however that he couldn't solidify the walls a bit more with what earth manipulation that he did know, just that most of the work had to be done by hand.

Arriving at the farm he looked at it and was surprised about how big a farm was inside of the leaf village walls. Walking up to the small house on the property he knocked and was rewarded with a medium height man who had very visible muscles. The amount of dirt under his fingernails gave a hint to how much he worked in the dirt.

"So, they sent you to complete this mission did they?" he started as he looked at Naruto with disdain. "But, then you are the fox kid from what I've heard so you should know something about digging, maybe not wells but something is better than nothing. Come over this way and I'll show you where you can start digging and where the chūnin that I hired previously said the best spots were."

As they started off Naruto said, "Not everything that the people in the village said about me is true. Most of it are things that they came up with on their own that when you look at it with more information become ridiculous ideas."

As he continued walking, the farmer said, "Oh and what information would make what the villagers said so wrong because they said that you are just the demon fox sealed into a human form."

Naruto sighed and said, "Most of the villagers have no idea of how the seal was created or how it works. The seal that contains the demon fox was created between the fourth hokage and the Shinigami. It was a contract that required his life in payment for powering the seal so that the fox could never escape. Do you honestly think that the nine tailed fox could escape a prison designed by the god of death?"

"Well now that does sound a bit more believable than what the villagers told me ten years ago," the farmer said with less disdain and annoyance in his voice. "So a prison powered by the god of death, it must be hell on you in the village with all of their incorrect theories."

"Ya, the villagers do tend to come to the wrong conclusions but in the end they believe some things that they were told." Naruto said a bit sadly. "Apparently in the beginning, the villagers weren't supposed to know about the fox because it was a high class secret that only the council was supposed to know. However one of the council members wanted to turn me into a weapon for his own personal use and convince several of the other councilors to leak partially accurate information so that he had the chance."

"Never really understood politics but then I'm just a farmer, what would I need with politics." the farmer said as they reached the site of the new well. "Well here is the list of what you're supposed to do to get the well dug correctly and don't worry I won't tell anyone about what we talked about because some of the biggest gossips in the village have never worked a day in their life. In general I don't respect anyone who hasn't at least worked hard a few times and just by looking at you I can tell that you've worked many long and hard days."

For the next several hours Naruto watched as his clones dug away at the new well and brought him cartloads of dirt that he used his limited earth manipulation to harden into stone blocks. More clones then took the stone blocks and added them to the stone wall that the farmer had started around his property with the rocks that he had dug out of his fields. Toward the end of the third hour of digging and about forty feet down a loud thunk echoed out of the partially dug well and Naruto got a very jumbled set of memories from the shadow clone that had been digging. The memories had been of falling and being hit in the head by loose rock.

Going over to the edge of the hole being very careful to stay on portions of ground that his clones had hardened before the hole had been dug he looked down in the whole to see several clones sticking to the wall with their hands full of flames so that they could see.

One of the clones at the bottom slowly made its way lower while hardening the walls as it went so that it didn't have to worry about falling. Reaching the area that the clone had been digging at the clone was shocked at what it had found. An underground cavern that was big enough that it all couldn't be seen from where he was. He could see a shoreline for the underground water and he could see that there were that at least half of the underground cavern wasn't submerged in water. Dispelling itself so that it could pass the information on the original the clones last thought was that it would be fun exploring the underground cavern.

Up top with the original Naruto the thought was echoed as he made a dozen more clones with orders to collect all of the dry wood in the nearby forest and for some of them to make an easier way up and down the wells walls.

It took almost thirty minutes before Naruto was ready to have his clones begin exploring the cavern but it was well spent in Naruto's opinion because it wiped out some of his earlier aggression at whoever had placed those seals on Hinata. Sending all of his clones down with torches so that they could conserve chakra was one of his better ideas for the clones. After about ten minutes one of the clones dispelled after it had found something that caused Naruto to almost gasp. Around the cavern there were seals that reinforced the cavern walls and stopped the river from expanding more than it already had.

Sending a clone of to the hokage Naruto made another few dozen clones to send down to the cavern. Wincing occasionally as a clone would find a trap by being dispelled by it. After awhile several of the clones dispelled when they had finished exploring the underground complex. Standing next to the well opening Naruto was shocked when the hokage came into view along with several anbu.

"Naruto, move away from the opening," Sarutobi yelled after he got close enough to be heard clearly by the blond. "There is no telling what's down there."

"I've already sent a huge number of clones down there," Naruto said as he shook his head. "There is an old root base under there and it was vary seriously trapped. Most of the traps however were the paralyzing kind because of what else wend on at the base. Apparently this base was something similar to the T and I department because of how it was set up in part."

"Naruto, if you had to guess how long has it been since this base has been used and what were its main purposes?" Sarutobi asked as he tried to think of what a hidden base in this area of the village could do.

"Considering how it was set up I'd say that it is an emergency base as well as an interrogation area." Naruto said after he thought a moment. "If I had to guess on how long it has been since it has been used, I would say that this base hasn't been used in the last five years. As for how long I don't know but the information in one of the desks is about five years old."

"Five years ago." Sarutobi said as he started stroking his beard trying to think of any events that happened five years ago that would have caused this base to be abandoned. "There was a small ring of supposedly foreign shinobi routed out of our village and destroyed around five years ago. If in truth that group was really root agents than it would make sense that some of their less used bases would be abandoned. Cat, Rabbit, I would like you two to map the complex and bring me a report on its contents. Have Naruto here provide you with some clones so that you can get done quicker."

Providing clones to help the anbu with the job they had been given provided another boring two hours as he waited for them to finish with their work while occasionally sending more clones down as the old ones dispelled for whatever reason. After the anbu were done there was a huge pile of things that were removed from the base that would need to be carried back to the tower. Seeing the problem just before they encountered it, Naruto reached behind his back to the center bottom of his jacket and channeled some chakra to the storage seal that he had hidden there. With a large poof of smoke a large sealing scroll appeared behind Naruto leaning against his back. Swiftly turning an grabbing the edge of the scroll he unfurled it in one move as when it fell it unrolled to reveal its full ten feet length. Numerous seals covered its surface but Naruto only went to one of them and poured chakra into it until another poof of smoke revealed several scrolls of the same size as the scroll that they were released from as well as a few smaller scrolls, ink, and brushes. Taking one of the larger scrolls and one of the ink bottles and a brush he started to draw a complex storage seal on the scroll. Taking the last five minutes that the anbu were rapidly double checking the hidden base Naruto carefully constructed a greater storage seal in the overlarge scroll.

Slapping his hands onto the finished seal and pouring a fair amount of chakra he activated the seal and then dumped a smaller amount of chakra into the seal causing the large pile of items to disappear in a cloud of smoke. Rolling up the scroll he se it aside and then turned back the sealing supplies that he had unsealed earlier and gathering them together again he resealed them with another puff of smoke. With a smaller puff of smoke the scroll disappeared back into the seal on the jacket. Picking up the scroll with all of the things from the base he shouldered it as the anbu came back out of the well opening carrying the last of the items from the base.

"Naruto if you would please accompany us back to the tower." Rabbit said in a neutral voice that made it hard to distinguish weather it was a man or women behind the mask.

"I'll meet you at the tower." Naruto said with a slight grin. "I'll race you there and the loser has to report all of this to the hokage."

"Do you really think that you can beat us Uzumaki.," Cat said in a distinctly male voice.

"Ok, the voice changing aspect of those masks is very misleading because if I didn't know that you both were women I never would have guessed." Naruto said as he attached wire to each end of the scroll and swung it onto his back. "But, yes I do think that I can beat the both of you in a race like this."

"Very well then, we shall begin on the count of three," Rabbit said as the mask changed her voice to a very feminine this time, "One, two, three."

Two dust clouds appeared from where Cat and Rabbit had been standing as they took off while Naruto just almost idly made several hand seals and the world blurred around him. He always did enjoy this technique when he used it. It was to bad that it only worked in an area where the user knew all of the area between the starting point and destination. Also, because of the way that it worked it couldn't work in combat because of the larger chance of the very terrain changing randomly and the user of the technique running straight into an attack. The blurring ended with Naruto standing on the roof of the building across from the tower. He jumped down and made his way to the Hokage's office walking straight in the open door to find team ten being assigned a D-rank mission. Waiting politely for them to finish he was laughing to himself when several minutes after he entered Cat and Rabbit entered the room panting and even with their masks on Naruto could tell that they were just gaping at him because they had to have been traveling at near their top speed to get here this fast.

"And that is why I thought that I could beat you." Naruto quietly said so only the two anbu could hear. "I really do love the vacuum step jutsu."

After team ten exited the room Naruto took the scroll from his back and leaned it up against the desk and said, "Mission complete and I'll turn you over to your loyal anbu for the report but if you need me I'll have a clone outside the compound so just give it the message and I'll come when you need me."

As Naruto was leaving the room he saw Sarutobi raise an eyebrow to the two anbu who were still a little short of breath an ask, "What did he mean by that?"

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the emotional morning Naruto had his afternoon was almost bleak by comparison until his last training exercise of the day. Pulling out a weapon from the storage room that he had never let Tenten enter he strapped the long katana to his side and moved to the training area.

Slowly drawing the long blade he started kneeling with his right knee on the ground and his other leg bent in front of it. Holding the blade out in front of him with both hands on the hilt he started channeling chakra to the sword. Several seconds of him just standing there pouring chakra into the sword and nothing seemed to be happening until with a hiss of releasing energy the blade of the katana split along the line where the front and back of the blade met. The interior of the blade wasn't solid or hollow as could so easily be assumed in cases like this rather it had several pieces connection the two parts of the blade that were allowing it to open flawlessly. Several springs were connected to the parts that connected the two parts of the blade that would snap the blade back together as soon as he stopped channeling Chaka. As soon as the last spring was suppressed the tip of the blade disconnected from the rest and stood a full half an inch away from the rest of the blade and every gap in the blade started leaking bluish energy. Mere seconds after the chakra started leaking out of the blade seals sprang into visibility all along the blade and then Naruto started to move through precise flowing motions through a group of training posts looking almost as if he were dancing leaving glowing arcs along the path that the blade took that faded almost reluctantly after a moment.

All of the training posts fell to the ground sliced to pieces with every singly edge blackened from where the blade had come into contact with the posts. Normally cutting training posts apart wouldn't be anything special however these posts had been extras from an order that Maito Gai that he had wanted for his student to let him have something to train against that are much harder to break than the normal ones that were all over the place. The order might also have had something to do with the time that he was beginning to train his student Lee in the hidden lotus which would require much tougher training equipment. Back then Naruto had even thoughtfully included a regeneration tablet. Considering that the tablets were designed to be taken with a soldier pill and redirected all of the chakra in the body into healing energy temporarily they were very much in demand with the higher level ninja for when they hurt themselves to much in their own training. The major downside to the tablets is that after using one the users chakra regenerates very slowly for up to a week afterwards. The reason it was so popular with higher level ninja was that when the pill activated it completely healed the injury to the point of regeneration.

Slowly stopping the flow of chakra to the sword, Naruto watched as the springs inside the blade snapped it shut until it looked like it did before he channeled chakra. As Naruto looked over the blade he was thinking about how while it worked, it wasn't quite what he wanted when he had made it. Almost absently Naruto said to the empty training field, "The razor flame edge worked but at this point it takes more chakra than most chūnin have to activate the blade but once it's activated an academy student could keep it active for several hours if they had enough chakra. I'm still not sure whether to file this experiment under the success or failure classification. Oh well I guess that I could always sell it to one of those anbu that are always asking after any new sword designs that I'm selling."

Deciding to just put it off for now because the weapon did work correctly and didn't blow up in his face. Naruto spent the rest of the night just idly working on several projects as well as starting to work on another design for the razor flame that would hopefully yield the results that he wanted.

Most of the next two weeks was just doing several D rank missions each day as well as having groups of clones training and working on his projects in the hidden training grounds, and testing out prototypes of the weapons that he designed. During this time his next delivery date came up and Tenten talked her way into seeing the new prototypes that he had created that worked. As with all the other times that she had seen the new working prototypes she tried to get him to let her use them or to get him to work with her at least to create a workable style for each of the weapons. As always he turned her down and packed the weapons away. In truth he wouldn't have minded helping to make styles for the weapons but as these weapons were just going to be sold off along with any duplicates that he eventually made, he just didn't see the point. He had developed styles for all of the weapons that he constantly carried on him as well as several others but all of those were designs that he had no intention of ever selling to anybody or at least until he had replaced them in his arsenal with something stronger.


	5. Chapter 5

Do not own Naruto in any way shape or form

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

It wasn't until the start of the third month of Naruto's shinobi career that he as given anything other than the D rank missions. He was turning in a group of D rank missions that he had finished while still internally laughing at the one he had done personally. The mission had been given by one of the most prosperous merchants that lived in the leaf village who had commissioned it after he had heard that Naruto could make a fairly large number of clones. Apparently his wife loved her flower garden more than anything except shopping and when he had been picking up new seeds for her to plant in her garden he had gotten the wrong color of roses and the roses had grown in red when he was supposed to have gotten the white roses. So while the merchant's wife was out shopping the merchant had snuck Naruto into the garden and given him a special plant dye that would temporarily dye the roses white. Naruto was told that the merchant wanted all of the roses to be polka dotted and he was going to have is wife deal with that. Later after all of the flowers had been dyed the merchants wife had come home and saw the roses and absolutely gushed over how much she loved the uniqueness of her garden now.

After turning in his missions, Naruto stopped by the Hokage's office and arrived just in time to see a small dog go up in smoke after it had delivered its message.

Sarutobi looked troubled as he said, "Naruto, if you pushed it how quickly could you pack for a month long mission as well as taking some extra supplies to a team that needs backup currently?"

"Around half an hour to forty-five minutes if I really push hard to get everything ready in time but why would you be sending me as backup for a team?" Naruto asked as he began mentally tallying the things that he would need for the mission.

"Team seven just ran into the demon brothers who are chūnin mist missing ninja and the dog that you saw as you entered was sent to ask for backup." Sarutobi answered as he lit his pipe and took a fortifying pull of the smoke. "And, as for why you, well currently you are the only one who can get ready and be off fast enough to be of any help to them for right now. If I can get them ready in time to be of help I will send another team after you. Maybe one of the other fresh genin teams. Anyway the scroll that I want you to take to Kakashi will be ready and waiting for you at the east gate in thirty minutes and you need to be off on the mission within the next hour."

"Right." Naruto said as he accepted the scroll from the hokage and nearly sprinted out of the room to go get his things ready for the mission.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pulling on the last of his gear, Naruto sped out of the compound making a shadow clone as he went. As he used the vacuum step technique he saw the clone activating the defensive barriers and locking up the compound before he lost himself in the blur that his world had become.

Dropping out of the technique he found himself in front of the gates and hurriedly began signing himself out. Finishing, he didn't wish to waste anymore time so drawing on his wind element he thinned the air in front of him with his chakra. With less resistance he was running almost twice as fast as he normally did with his seals on.

He was just about to turn the restriction seals that he had on his body off when he caught movement from the corner of his eye. Movement that was following and observing him. Slowing down as if moving at that speed had seriously tired him, Naruto started planning his next movements if the situation turned into a battle. Slowing to a light jog he moved as he was much more tired than he really was. Slowing to a stop and pulling out his canteen he took a long gulp just as a kunai imbedded itself into the ground in front of him.

"The road's closed." a large burly man said as he blocked the road. He stood a little over six feet tall with dark hair and black eyes that shown with evil thoughts. He was wearing dark red pants and a partially white vest that was over half way reddish brown. A dull mist headband hung around his left arm with a line all the way through the metal piece. "Normally I'd just kill you but for now my employer said to leave everyone alone except for the team with the bridge builder. Normally I wouldn't care about what my employers said but I was offered too much money to not follow simple orders."

Gulping because of nervousness, Naruto pulled the kunai from the holster on his leg and held it in a basic defensive stance. The kunai's metal was tinted slightly red and there were markings on the side.

"I guess that I can play with a little baby genin." the man said as he started laughing uproariously. "Listen well because I won't repeat myself. My name is Koga Hanasaki and whether you live or not depends on how fun you make this game for me."

Throwing the kunai in his hand Naruto quickly pulls another red tinted kunai with each hand from the bottom of his jacket and blocks Koga's ordinary kunai with the kunai in his left hand while throwing the one in his right toward Koga only to miss again. Jumping back he threw the kunai in his left hand and again missed. Pulling the last two kunai in his jacket he smiled as he threw them backwards to impact two trees just like all of the others had done.

A flash of light so bright it nearly blinded Koga and he found himself surrounded by chains forming a star shape inside of a circle. Symbols glowing along every chain another Naruto appeared without his jacket outside of the circle making it obvious where the technique had come from.

"Big deal so you have some fancy chains crossing the field." Koga said as he moved toward the chains. As he reached them he heard a small popping noise and saw his opponent's jacket fall to the ground from where it had been worn by a clone. Reaching the chains he tried to get past them only to meet resistance from the very air above the chains. Try though he might, he couldn't break the chains or get past them. "So, what are you going to do to me brat now that you have caught me in this little trap of yours?"

"Nothing." Naruto said as he carefully shifted through five strange hand seals and then holding the last seal tapped his hands against the kunai next to him. "Five worlds barrier jutsu." Naruto said as each of the five points of the star began glowing different colors and Koga began screaming.

Holding the technique for five minutes Naruto waited as he kept releasing chakra into the technique and as soon as it was over he saw the lifeless body of Koga slide to the ground. Gathering his kunai he had a shadow clone search Koga's corpse before sealing it into a scroll. The clone found two scrolls on Koga's body similar to what he wound up sealed into.

Before he left, Naruto turned and bowed to the spot where Koga had died and said, "I'm very sorry that it had to end this way Koga but in the end you could not master the darkness from your past and you paid the price for that."

~~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~~~~

Several hours later Kakashi found himself in a rather delicate situation as his team tried to fight off Zabuza Momochi while he was trapped inside of a water prison being held together by the real Zabuza's arm. So far in the fight since he had been captured, Kiba had been knocked out against a tree and Sasuke was panting from managing to destroy one clone while it was distracted with Kiba. All in all, Kakashi could tell that the fight wasn't going to go well for his genin.

Slowly the mists which surrounded the battle field swirled as though a powerful wind was blowing through them. A semitransparent greenish figure rushed out of the mists holding a scythe, as a voice seemed to echo across the battlefield, "Wind style, air reaper."

The green figure jumped up at the edge of the lake and brought its scythe down at Zabuza. Zabuza brought his Kibikiri Hucho up and cut the figure in half, which turned out to be a mistake. Zabuza's sword cleaved right through the green figure however instead of dying of simply dissipating like Zabuza thought it would, there was an explosion and the air filled with miniature blades.

Zabuza caught the brunt of the attack because of how close he was to it, however all of the blades that hit the water prison simply blew away chunks of rapidly destabilizing water as it returned to its natural form.

Catching himself on the water Kakashi smiled beneath his mask, and silently thanking whoever had sent the technique that had freed him. Using his Sharingan eye he proceeded to mimic his opponents movements until a minor illusion that he had placed into Zabuza's mind took hold. Later Kakashi would think of this battle as somewhat anticlimactic because someone else finished it for him. That the person was about the same age as his students made it hurt his pride quite a bit more.

After the battle came to a close, Naruto waited a few moments to make sure that there weren't any hidden enemies that he could detect before exiting his hiding place to greet team seven. As he slowly approached team seven he saw Kakashi collapse and the main thought running through his head was that Kakashi was somewhat of an idiot because the eye severely limited the chakra that he had that he could use when he uncovered it. Because it was an implanted bloodline, Kakashi's body couldn't handle the stress that it put on his body. He couldn't be sure but if he had to guess Naruto would say that the eye came from an Uchiha that had an earth or water affinity because of how bad the drain was.

Everyone's chakra carried all five of the main chakra elements in different quantities and with elemental training, using techniques of that element becomes easier. While someone who has not trained with an element could still do the technique however it would take quite a bit more chakra than someone who had the elemental training. Chakra paper tested what element the person's chakra was most aligned with however with enough work a person could excel even in their worst element. Sub elements were combinations of two or more elements and contrary to popular opinion they did not require a bloodline to use. It wasn't very common knowledge but children's chakra resembled its parents and most so called elemental bloodlines were really just reinforcements of generations using the element and strengthening it over several generations. This didn't mean that people outside of those clans couldn't use the element itself rather that since their body wasn't adapted to using it that there were techniques and abilities that they couldn't use such as one bloodline that had once existed in mist. The bloodline had allowed the user to turn their entire body into a liquid that resembled water and to use water style jutsu uniquely.

Continuing to hide, Naruto ripped his thoughts back on track. He would need to report to Kakashi as soon as he woke up but for now he would hide nearby and be ready in case team seven needed more help. Following in the shadows he took care of three thugs that were getting ready to attack team seven, quickly searching their bodies he found several money pouches as well as items that were worth several thousand Ryo at least. The oddest find on them were the five elemental jutsu scrolls in their possession. He would wonder how thugs like them got a hold of jutsu scrolls, but each scroll seemed to be at least fifty years old so there could be any number of reasons. The most likely in Naruto's mind was that the scrolls were acquired from the black market and were payment for something.

From his reading into history Naruto knew that the black market bought and sold anything and everything. Some upper level black market dealers were even known to have collections of ninja items in their hidden bases even if they never used them. It was more of a pride thing rather than them wanting the items to use them. When these people hired ninja instead of regular ninja from villages they would rather hire missing ninja because then they don't have the village messing in their affairs.

Finding another thug attempting to attack team seven, he knocked the man out, and tied him up. Gagging him, Naruto carried him after team seven with the help of two clones. In the end Naruto killed and looted four more thugs that were about to attack team seven before they reached the bridge builders house.

Taking his captive into the forest, he quickly bound the man to a tree and searched him while slipping paired gravity seals on him. With him unable to move his hands, it shouldn't matter but if he somehow escaped from the bindings the paired seals would separate and he would be dropped into five times normal gravity and it would only increase if he was able to use chakra as the seals would draw from his chakra to power themselves. Finding nothing of interest, he created a clone and had it transform into Maito Gai, before hiding and had the clone interrogate his captive. It only took fifteen minutes for the captive to break under the sunset illusion and the youthful speeches. The funny thing was that once the captive broke he was almost volunteering information just to the clone to leave him alone. Naruto had no problem with the information because every time he thought that the captive lied the Gai clone stepped closer. It took almost an hour but he now had all of the information that he needed from the captured enforcer of Gato. The man whose name Naruto hadn't bothered to learn had a smile on his face as the kunai plunged into his heart. Again looting the body he destroyed it along with all of the others that he had killed since the start of the mission. For ease of transport he had sealed their bodies into a corpse scroll that he had made on one of his short breaks in traveling to catch up with team seven.

With all of the stealth that he had learned from his pranking days Naruto and ten hastily made clones began searching the island and marking where Gato's forces were heavily located. Two days of boredom and working on deciphering seals followed his search of the island because both times that he had snuck into the bridge builders house he had found Kakashi sleeping off his chakra exhaustion. Normally for the level of chakra exhaustion that Kakashi had, it would take about two weeks to heal from naturally. A good medic ninja could have him up and about in three days and even Naruto knew ways to help people get over chakra exhaustion faster than an unassisted healing would be. His two trips into the house were taken up with healing Kakashi and leaving him a note on what he had done and was assigned to do and when his next visit would be.

The third night of his stay in wave brought with it another infiltration of the bridge builders home and another trip into the room that had been assigned to Kakashi, who unlike the two previous trips was awake and waiting.

"Naruto Uzumaki, reporting," Naruto said with a salute.

"No formalities for now, Naruto." Kakashi said with an eye smile. "I really must thank you for helping with my healing because if you hadn't done what you did I would have been out for another two days as my body cannibalized itself for more energy to replace what I used."

"I know." Naruto cut him off as he pulled out his mission scroll and showed it to the experienced jonin. "As you can see old man hokage ordered me to back up your team on this mission because of the shortages that the village has been having recently because of the problems on the border. He said that he might be able to send another genin team if the mission count goes down but with the way that things are going on the border I don't think that he will be able to."

"Do you know what the situation on the border is currently?" Kakashi said as quite a bit of his old anbu personality bled back into his actions.

"A group of rock and cloud missing ninjas are hiring missing ninja from other countries and raiding across the fire country border. And even though there are rumors that the group is funded by rock and cloud, nothing can be done because we have no proof." Naruto said calmly as if talking about the weather rather than information that was only supposed to be in the hands of chūnin and above ninja.

"Where did you get your information?" Kakashi asked as he hoped that Naruto had gotten it from the official channels. If he had not Kakashi would have had to report a security breach to the Hokage and fallout all of the paperwork that came with such a thing.

"I was informed as I left the village by the gate guards who had orders to make sure that every team leader who left the village was updated when they left." Naruto said as he started grinning. "I don't think that anyone realized that when I leave the village on my own I count as team leader because I'm the only member of my team."

A few more things passed between Naruto and Kakashi such as what he had been doing in wave and what he was planning. After almost half an hour of planning Kakashi released Naruto to go back into hiding until he said to come out. They were going to plan more but Kakashi's weakened body needed more rest if he wanted to give his team training in the morning.

~~~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~~

The next morning Kakashi was able to move around on a set of crutches that Naruto had supplied him with the previous night although his body wasn't quite up to manipulation chakra yet. If Naruto hadn't shown up he would have had to wait an extra day or two for his body to regulate the chakra in his coils.

Kakashi and his team reached a small clearing in the forest on the island and Kakashi said, "Today team we will be practicing chakra control. Now does everyone remember what chakra is?"

Naruto hiding in the trees could only smack himself at the question even as Sakura gave the textbook answer, "Chakra is the elemental life energy that is a combination of physical energy is the energy of all of the cells in the body working together and spiritual energy which is intensified through training and experience."

"Correct." Kakashi said as he searched the tree line for something. "Now today we will be practicing how to climb trees."

"What? But sensei how will that help with our chakra control?" Sakura asked with a confused and annoyed expression.

"What use is this exercise to us, we already use chakra in our jutsu." Sasuke said with his expression betraying how annoying he found this.

"Ya, me and Akamaru are great at our jutsu so what use is this to us?" Kiba said loudly as Akamaru barked in agreement.

"None of you have even scratched the surface of the true potential of chakra." Kakashi said as he got a bit angry at his team that wouldn't listen to him. "Chakra is so much more than you all have seen of it. But right now you all are wasting it because you are guessing at the proportions that you need in jutsu. It doesn't matter if you generate more chakra than you need because all you will be doing is wasting it if you don't have it mixed right. The tree walking exercise requires a basic amount of control to use and is the start on a long line of control exercises that focus on various things. It focuses on bringing the correct amount of chakra to your feet in a set amount and concentration. The better your chakra control becomes, the more jutsu that you can perform with the same amount of chakra."

"Kakashi-sensei could you show us the exercise so that we will know what to do?" Sakura asked as she tried to imagine people walking up walls but couldn't because of the amount of things about ninja that she as a civilian born didn't know about.

"I would but right now it's all that I can do to be walking around on these crutches." Kakashi said as he scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "But, there is one other person here who can demonstrate the exercise, isn't that right Naruto?"

Coming out of hiding Naruto said, "All that you said about chakra is true but you left many gaping holes in your explanation. Within reason the more chakra you use the more your body produces and the more that it carries in reserve. In this case think of your reserves as a balloon that can theoretically grow to any size if given enough time. As you train your body and learn new jutsu you chakra is forced to expand just a bit each time. The same could be said for control because if you can control how much chakra you use in your jutsu then you can stretch how long your chakra will last or in the case of the balloon analogy how long you can use the water in the balloon. Beyond that as it uses chakra to do the exercise, you are expanding your reserves when you are learning this."

Calmly walking down the tree and showing the exercise he stopped at the bottom and pulled out the scroll that Sarutobi had given him of extra supplies for the mission. Releasing the seal inside the scroll, Naruto was surprised to find several scrolls that were labeled with the name each member of team seven as well as a scroll for him that had a label on the outside that was titled 'Weird chakra control exercises for the people who have large reserves but less than perfect control.' Naruto still a little bit dazed by the scroll that Sarutobi had given him said, "Before I left the village the hokage said that these were extra supplies that you might need with the increased rank of the mission."

Sakura who had been about to complain about Naruto's presence on the mission quieted when he pulled out what he said were extra supplies from home. Taking the scroll from Naruto and opening it all she found were some random lines along the inside of the scroll instead of what she thought had been sent. "What do you mean supplies from Naruto-baka." Sakura said as her confusion turned to anger. Pulling back her fist as far as she could and launching it toward Naruto much faster than she ever had in the academy Sakura was shocked when she found her arm behind her back in an iron like grip held by Naruto.

Since you are probably ignorant about sealing scrolls I'll give you a break on this attack but unlike the academy now I don't have to hold back so long as I don't kill you." Naruto said before pulling the still open scroll out of Sakura's hands and activating it releasing its contents in a puff of smoke. Out popped several sets of cloths that had obviously been provided by Sakura's mother which she hurriedly hid inside the extra backpack that had also been sealed. Several extra sets of basic weapons had been hidden underneath the cloths along with a case that had, 'Spiral wind kunoichi rations, rations that help keep your energy up while keeping your hot kunoichi figure.' written on it.

Kiba and Sasuke seeing what Sakura's scroll contained in it were ready to open their own scrolls to see what they were sent from the village. Two puffs of smoke and Sasuke and Kiba were looking as similar piles of items with Kiba's pile containing several items that were clearly for Akamaru. Both had gotten several extra sets of kunai and shuriken along with clothes and cases that had, 'Spiral wind shinobi rations, for when you need to eat on the go.' written on it. That was where the two piles similarity ended as Sasuke's pile had several of the other types of weapons that he used as well as several scrolls that has names of C and D rank techniques. While Kiba's pile had a large bag of 'Inuzuka style dog chow' with several dog grooming items and a long letter from his mother and sister telling him what they wanted him to practice while he was gone along with several threats of what they would do to him should he misbehave.

Kakashi was eyeing his scroll with interest while wondering just what the Hokage thought he would need with the increase in mission ranking. Taking the scroll he asked Naruto to open it for him since his body still needed to recover from his overdoing it in the battle with Zabuza. Out popped an extra set of kunai and shuriken, a case of spiral wind shinobi rations, as well as thirty seven orange books with a note on them that said, "Just in case you run out, I know how quickly the paperwork would counter me if I did not have my fix of the holy books - Sarutobi." His visible eye glittered with tears at the Hokage's thoughtfulness before a line of blood dripped down his face from each nostril staining his mask a bright red. Making a mental note to do something nice for the hokage when they got back Kakashi gathered the books quickly and sealing them back into the scroll he had been sent and off to the house he was moving so fast that his crutches were leaving dust trails.

In Naruto's mind a thought that he had once written off as impossible leapt to the front of his mind as he saw proof that it might be more correct than he had thought at the time that he read it. After a point in a ninjas life they will instinctively latch onto something that they enjoy to help keep their mind stable. Kakashi latched onto Ichi Ichi like Naruto had latched onto Ichiraku ramen, and that one kunoichi that Naruto had heard about Anko Mitarashi and her dango addiction. Strange that Naruto had thought that the scroll had been lying when it had stated that fact although he still refused to believe that there was a ninja out there that was addicted to bolder tossing.

It took another ten minutes before team seven was ready to question Naruto again and even then they were all feeling nicer to Naruto than before even though they still felt that he was butting in in their mission.

"Dobe, what made the Hokage send you after us?" Sasuke demanded as he finished looking over the scrolls that had been sent to him. Normally he wouldn't have asked and just assumed that he knew better than Naruto however for now it looked like the dobe had several skills that could come in handy for him to learn for now while he was waiting on his Sharingan to activate.

"Normally for a mission increase like this, if there are forces available then the Hokage will send out reinforcements if he deems it necessary." Naruto said as all three were looking at him expectantly. "Right now there is a border dispute and a great deal of the leaf village's forces are being deployed to that area and the Hokage can't afford to spare any of his remaining forces to send as true backup for right now. However, I was free and he assigned me to come and help at least until another team could be assigned in my place. Team eight is on a delivery run to the capital with a package to deliver, while team ten was assigned a bandit hunting mission, and finally team nine was assigned to several bandit hunting missions at once because they are fast enough to complete them all in a loop that will take them back to the village. Right now I'm the only one that he could assign because he is just barely above the minimum number of higher level shinobi in the village and the genin pool right now consists only of the students in our graduating class that failed their sensei's tests and wanted to remain in the ninja forces."

"Hnnn," Sasuke grunted as he took in the information that Naruto had given him. "Just don't get in my way." And with that Sasuke moved his bag of supplies over behind the tree that he was sizing up to use for the tree climbing exercise. Sakura hearing what Sasuke said agreed with him and she too began to move her things over to the tree that she was going to use for the exercise. Kiba who had paid attention to what was being said had already started on the exercise before Sasuke or Sakura. Akamaru was in man beast clone form trying the exercise as well although not doing as well as Kiba because he lacked the chakra to truly do the exercise.

The rest of the day continued in that vain until Naruto got bored and started trying the exercises listed in his new scroll. They weren't very hard because some of the exercises could be used by academy students."

During one of the breaks that Sasuke took from tree climbing he asked about how long Naruto had been in wave and was shocked to get the answer that he got. "As long as you have been in wave."

The next morning Kakashi told him that his plan to stick to the shadows for now was a good one and that with him as hidden backup they would probably stand a better chance against the hunter ninja and Zabuza. So while Naruto would keep hidden and keep track of team sevens progress on the exercise, Kakashi would be using his crutches to follow Tazuna around and keep him out of danger. Even in Kakashi's weakened state he was still more than a match for quite a number of thugs. Things continued like this for nine more days during which Kakashi managed a full recovery from the chakra exhaustion that he had gotten from his battle with Zabuza and all three members of team seven had moved onto water walking near the bridge.


	6. Chapter 6 battle on the bridge

Do not own Naruto or anything else in any way shape or form

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Kakashi would say that every thing was fine except when he arrived with his team at the bridge all of the workers were wounded and laid on the ground just next to the start of the bridge.

"Heh, well Kakashi don't expect today to be another easy victory like the other day." Zabuza said as he moved his right hand to the hilt of his sword. Holding his left hand in a half seal Zabuza said, "Water clone jutsu." Over a dozen water clones appeared on the bridge, each holding their oversized head cleaving blade in a different stance.

"Sasuke do it." Kakashi said as he hoped that his team had trained enough to be able to battle on this level. Watching as Sasuke destroyed all of the water clones he let out a breath he hadn't known that he was holding.

"Oh, looks like you have a rival in speed Haku." Zabuza said with a dark chuckle.

"So it seems." came the emotionless voice from Zabuza's right. Out stepped the hunter ninja that had managed to sprit away Zabuza on their first encounter. Suddenly dashing forward Sasuke and Haku met as Haku held a senbon against Sasuke's kunai. Now at this point things might have been different if Sasuke hadn't remembered a piece of advice that he had heard from Naruto of all people.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~ flashback ~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

During Naruto's watching over of team seven, there had been several times when Sasuke had taken breaks and remembering back to the details of what the exercise was supposed to help in had asked for what all the exercise helped with.

Somewhat annoyed to be pulled away from designing a seal array for his latest weapons experiment, Naruto answered, "Tree climbing as I've probably said before is designed to help you control your chakra better than you currently are. The two basic things that you will have to worry about chakra are how well you can control it as well as how big your reserves are. As you saw when Sakura started this exercise, her control is much better than yours but that is because she has a much smaller pool of chakra to draw upon. So, while her control is better, at most she could pull off three or four of the academy techniques in a row, while you have the ability to use any of the academy techniques about thirty times in one day. Your grand fireball jutsu is a good example of this in that you can perform several of this technique a day while someone like Sakura doesn't have the necessary reserves to even use the weaker fireball jutsu even once. Now to explain the exercise if you were to take someone with your reserves and Sakura's control they would be able to use about three times the number of techniques that you could."

"When did you suddenly grow a brain, dobe?" Sasuke asked in a somewhat lighter tone that didn't seem as insulting as his normal one was.

"Oh, I've known most of this since before we started the academy but because of an incident several years ago I'm not well liked in the village so I tend to try and make myself look much more goofy than I really am." Naruto said as a more serious tone than Sasuke had ever heard him utter floated through his voice.

"Really than if that is so and you know so much about high level combat what would your advice be about fighting those who are stronger than we are?" Sasuke asked hoping to get some insight into how powerful the blond was as well as maybe pick up an idea for his eventual combat with his brother.

"Most battles that aren't battles of ego in the shinobi world are determined by how prepared you are when you go into them because if your enemy was more prepared to fight you than there is a very good chance that you will lose." Naruto said as he almost unknowingly fell into his lecturing voice again. "But then, you should already know this Sasuke. Higher level ninja generally pick their favorite techniques and over many repetitions are able to use these techniques much faster than one would normally see them. I wasn't here for the battle against the demon brothers but if the story that I heard along the was here is correct you saw Kakashi use the replacement jutsu without any hand seals correct?"

Reluctantly Sasuke nodded and thinking back he wondered just how Kakashi had been able to pull it off. His thoughts wandered a bit from there and he was abruptly pulled back to the present when Naruto continued his explanation.

"It takes considerably more control as well as a very precise memory but it is very possible to use many techniques without the hand seals that help form them." Naruto continued his explanation, "However with the more hand seals to the technique the harder it is to complete without them to guide your chakra correctly. Which is why even most jonin tend to stick to techniques that require less than ten hand seals for the ones that they work on most. Another compromise for those longer techniques is one handed seals and on more favored techniques even quite a few chūnin level ninja are able to perform some of their favored moves using the partial pattern as a guide to help in forming the technique. Ninja who tend to use larger weapons tend to be fairly proficient at one handed seals anyway because it helps them out of many tight spots."

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~ flashback end ~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

There had been more to the various lectures that his questions had sparked but his mind latched on to the explanation about one handed seals and with a slight widening of his eyes quickly drew another kunai with his right hand and with an underhanded toss flung it as hard as he could at Haku's neck.

Haku who hadn't been expecting that reaction from a genin level ninja had started one handed seals and barely managed to catch the kunai before it did irreparable damage. As it was there was a line of blood running down his neck from where the tip of the blade cut just barely deep enough to draw the blood. The wound wasn't anywhere vital but the fact that the genin thought that an attack could still come was somewhat shocking because none of the hidden villages really advertised the fact that techniques could be done with on handed seals or without seals especially the leaf village which had been home to the Sharingan. Known facts across the elemental nations was that the Sharingan could copy almost any jutsu that used all of its hand seals however for those techniques that were used with one handed seals and those that had been used without seals the Sharingan was only able to predict them. Another exception that was widely known was the fact that there were a number of techniques that even if they were copied they were useless without the key to the jutsu such as the late Yondaime Hokage's flying thunder god technique as well as any technique that involved a summoning contract. The Uchiha clan had been vary adamant in suppressing this information however with the clans near extinction the information had become widely known once again even though it was fairly useless because only two people were known to have active Sharingan eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Not knowing about the battle at the bridge, Naruto was sitting hidden in the trees watching Tsunami's house in case anything happened because there was a good chance that Zabuza could attack at any time and that there might be someone sent to take Tazuna's family to use as hostages against him. Seeing two thugs with swords he started to move into a position that would let him take them out as they left. Things got slightly more complicated when another man with a slashed mist headband appeared in a swirl of water.

"Do you sense any others around here, Gin?" one of the thugs asked as he carefully searched around the house.

"If there are any others around here, they aren't worth killing as they're cowards." the now identified Gin said as he hafted a large spear to his shoulder.

Seeing an at least chūnin level ninja Naruto was quickly altering his plans as well as making quite a few new ones. Pulling out a shuriken that was just a bit lopsided in that on each one of the sides the blade portion was only sharpened on the elongated sides. Channeling a little chakra into it as he could he was rewarded with seals lighting up all along the blade. Flicking the shuriken toward Gin, he pulled two of the kunai from the back of his jacket and got ready to use his backup plan in case his initial plan failed. Fortunately the plan succeeded and with a small gasp gin fell over dead as the shuriken thumped into the ground with a coating of red on the inner circle of the shuriken. Dropping from his hiding place he knocked out the two thugs as they stared in shock at Gin's death.

Pulling everything that they knew from them was very easy as was giving them a second mouth that grinned from their necks in a shower of red. Stationing clones to guard Tazuna's family Naruto left with a large group of clones to attack Gato's fortress.

Breaking the gate to the compound Naruto was confronted with half a dozen thugs as well as several women tied to various things. Calling forth another batch of clones he unleashed them in a torrent. Combat lasted for several minutes before with one last order to his clones, once he knew that they were no longer encountering any resistance among the still living people present, he disappeared from the scene in a blur of speed.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Dropping out of his top speed at the bridge he quickly took in the situation that was playing out in front of him in the rapidly dispersing mist. Seeing that Kakashi was alright he looked for all of the other genin and saw that they were in a bad position. Sakura was standing next to Tazuna and shaking from the killer intent that was running rampant across the bridge. Kiba seemed to have numerous senbon needles spread across his body in what looked like nonfatal areas and Akamaru had a needle in each of his four legs pinning him to the bridge. Sasuke was surrounded in ice mirrors and looked to be rapidly becoming a pincushion. Feeling his chakra he formed the ram hand seal and said, "First restriction seal: release." a dull glow formed along his right arm as he felt the amount of chakra he had access to suddenly almost quadruple.

Sighing softly as he thought back to the idea that he had three years ago to help with his control training. Creating a seal that was classified as a master level forbidden seal wasn't easy and he had only managed it because he was working from several base seals that had functions that he knew fairly well. Each seal stopped roughly a jonin's level of chakra from being assessable, while it was active and while it had helped his control he still had to use two more to be able to use the academy clone and while they were active he felt like he was running on fumes. Since he had applied those seals he had worked extensively on chakra control with various numbers of the seals active and placing another on whenever his chakra reached double what the seal held back. A variation of the seal was what he had applied to Mizuke during their fight because while it had the same effect, the seal that he had applied to Mizuke could only be removed by the same person who placed it or by four other ninja. Twelve black seal markings glittered from his arm as he rolled back the right sleeve on his jacket and one red marking as he checked the battle once more observed the masked ninja fighting Sasuke launched three final needles into Sasuke and let the ice mirrors drop before advancing on Sasuke.

Dropping his stealth as well as releasing another seal for insurance Naruto appeared on the bridge and caught the masked ninjas hand as it brought down a sealing tag toward Sasuke. Taking in the tag Naruto was somewhat shocked to see that it was a prisoner seal. A vary advanced prisoner seal that would cause the nervous system to shut down until it is removed. Ripping the tag Naruto hoped that the masked ninja didn't have any more on them because once applied they were a pain because they also screwed up the commands that the brain is able to get out.

The masked ninja laughed and in a tone that wouldn't betray their gender said, "So, it seems that Zabuza-sama wasn't wrong when he said that there may be more of you leaf ninja."

"I arrived during the first battle between Zabuza and Kakashi and I was the one that used the wind technique to help free Kakashi." Naruto said in an attempt to stall the supposed hunter ninja across from him. Hoping that it would distract his opponent even more he continued by asking in what he hopped was a inquisitive voice, "Why were you going to use that prisoner seal on Sasuke over there?"

"Zabuza-sama needs funds to help with the bloodline rebellion," the fake hunter said in a once again gender neutral voice. "We have heard that recently there have been several contracts put out for ether an Uchiha or a main branch Hyūga that were almost excessively high. With that kind of funding we could help win the rebellion in mist easily."

"You do realize that even if you had managed to spirit off one of the main branch Hyūga or Sasuke that you would have been marked as kill on sight in every nations bingo book as well as most likely having every nation blacklisting you because of stealing a bloodline as a missing ninja, right?" Naruto said as a sickening feeling erupted in his stomach. If someone in the elemental nations was targeting some of the major bloodlines of the hidden leaf village than it could escalate into a major war and right now Naruto had no intentions of letting it happen if he could avoid it. In fact it wouldn't surprise Naruto if one or both of the contracts had originated from Orochimaru because of some of the notes that he had found in the root base he had helped ransack. Just remembering the details that had been part of those notes made the sick feeling in his stomach much worse.

"I'm not too sure of the details however Zabuza-sama has stated that he would take the blame for the kidnappings and that he would try and fade into the background after helping the funding because with this action added to his resume he would never be able to be a ninja for any nation again." the fake hunter said as a sick feeling permeated her stomach as well. While she had known the plan beforehand she had never quite known the level of backlash that the plan could unleash on both her and Zabuza. Haku had hidden her true gender very well for longer than she had known Zabuza and if it weren't for several incidents in her training Zabuza wouldn't have known her true gender either. Considering her past though she didn't really want anyone else to know her gender if she could avoid it because of several of the female bloodline users that they had met who had been fleeing the hidden mist village and the fates that had happened to them. In fact one of those bloodline users that they had met had been her aunt on her mothers side and it was because of her that she even had any scrolls for ice release techniques and had been able to develop more techniques for the element with their help. The last she had seen of her aunt though was her being taken by a ninja with a musical note on his headband and paying the mist hunter ninja while he had kept her from moving with four of his six arms. With the bloodline purges going on in mist it was very possible that many of the hunter ninja had taken to selling some of the bloodline users to other nations to pad the amount that they were already getting for hunting the bloodline users in the first place.

Both snapping out of their thoughts almost at the same moment they started circling each other and looking for an opening. After a minute of this they were both starting to feel a little frustration because every time they saw an opening it disappeared before they could take advantage of it. The standoff could have continued longer however a large sound intruded on their battle as well.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Dogs biting down on Zabuza's arms and legs holding him in place, Kakashi stood still as he built his chakra for the weaker version of his original technique. Feeling his chakra reaching the necessary levels Kakashi started in on his planned speech, "This is the end Zabuza. You've used up all of your chances." Flaring his chakra into visibility as he started his jutsu, Kakashi smiled behind his mask as both of Zabuza's eyebrows rose and he started sweating.

Within Zabuza's mind many thoughts were conflicting with each other as he fought off his rising panic. The technique that was being leveled at him was at least an A ranked jutsu and with his body immobilized like it was there was very little chance of the it missing its target at all. Going over his chakra reserves mentally he realized that he was running too low for any of the jutsu that he had mastered until he no longer needed hand seals for them.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

During their circling of each other both Naruto and Haku's eyes were drawn to the sound emanating from where Kakashi and Zabuza were battling and with each rotation they were able to see a little bit more as the mist thinned further. Their battle came to an abrupt end as Haku suddenly lurched forward and gave a muffled cry of, "Zabuza-sam…"

The cry was cut off as a fist lodged itself into her gut and a slip of paper that Naruto had hastily drawn was thrust between her eyes as the symbols on it glowed brightly. Haku's body slumped forward as the seal Naruto had placed on her head took effect. Turning back to the battle once he was sure that the seal that he had used on the fake hunter was working correctly, Naruto saw a sight that would be in his dream for a very long time to come.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Running forward with the chidori held in his hand it crackled in the air from the repressed energy of the lightning energy that the held in his hand. Thrusting his hand forward Kakashi was rewarded with the sound of his jutsu cutting through flesh and breaking bone. Opening back up his eyes after he had closed them for a second to avoid the blood that was usually dispersed when jutsu like this pierced something. It wasn't until that moment that he realized that he had missed and taken out Zabuza's shoulder instead of plunging the technique through his heart. Ripping the technique from Zabuza's shoulder Kakashi knew that no matter what else Zabuza was already dieing because of the lightning slowly tearing up his nervous system. That type of death was never an easy sight to witness.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Everyone on the bridge stopped even in their varied reactions to Zabuza losing his arm when from the unfinished end of the bridge clapping echoed through the still thinning mists. From the depths of the mists a short man with a very expensive looking suit stepped toward where the battle had just ended. Many bandits and other cheaply hired thugs all of which held drawn weapons followed the short man out of the mist.

"Well, well, well, looks like you were a baby demon after all, Zabuza." the short man said as he tapped his cane along the bridge and smiled malevolently. "This outcome might be even better for me than any other that I could think of because with your bounty as well as that leaf jonin's, I'll more than make up for the profits that I lost in hiring you. And if I'm not mistaken I can probably make more on the rest of you, especially the Uchiha and the Hyōton user. Yes, the newly formed sound village has been paying a pretty price for all of the bloodline users that it could acquire but they seemed especially interested in any Uchiha that they could get for some reason. Oh, and Zabuza, I never was going to pay you."

Dropping to the ground as the dog summons disappeared from around him Zabuza started chuckling before he said, "Well, Kakashi, looks like our battles were pointless after all."

"So, it seems, Zabuza." Kakashi said as he tried to guess how many of the mercenaries he could take out with his remaining chakra.

"I'm dieing Kakashi." Zabuza said as he used his mouth to rip the bandages around his mouth. "I've killed so many in my lifetime I cannot see my hands under all of the blood that they carry and with my life that was fine and since this is the end of my life I'd like to use the last of my strength to give Haku a chance to escape the fate of being sold to the sound village. I can feel the life in my body seeping away even now. I have one good charge left in my body for now. Someone give me a kunai and I will clear as many bandits as my remaining life will allow me."

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Within Naruto's mind ancient red eyes opened and a huge toothy grin split the demons face as it felt the swell of emotions come over it's host. Along one of the walls across from Kyuubi's cell thirteen marks flared to life with along the wall. The first one from the left dimmed as its power had already been released. Simultaneously all twelve of the remaining marks released and a torrent of chakra was released from confinement.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

"That won't be necessary, Zabuza Momochi." Naruto said as his hair covered his eyes and he spoke in a soft tone that seemed to carry across the bridge easily. Raising his right hand to his face Naruto bit down hard enough on his thumb to draw blood and started forming hand seals. Ten hand seals later and he drew his bloody thumb over an invisible seal on the back of his left hand while saying, "Master restriction seal: release." in an instant a heavy presence loomed over the bridge and a bloodlust filled the air that made everyone on the bridge feel as though their bodies had already died before any damage had been done to them.

Kakashi and Zabuza were both having flashbacks to those few times that they had seen S rank combat because many ninja would feel this way when they would see the raw power that those few S rank ninja's carried with them. However, neither one of the jonin level ninja had ever encountered this feeling when they were not the target of the attack from one of those S rank ninja. To be feeling this presence when it wasn't even aimed at you was an almost ridiculous proposition.

Power coiling around him in a dance as the bluish energy became visible for an instance before fading back into invisibility. Raising his hand and showing that his fingernails had sharpened to a point, Naruto looked over at the mercenaries that were to the far left on the bridge and snapped his fingers. Almost instantly shaking his hand free of the blood that almost seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, he grinned as over a dozen of the mercenaries necks opened from five rough gashes running all the way across their necks. Most of the mercenaries missed Naruto making almost thirty hand seals as they gaped soundlessly at their onetime comrades hit the bridge and started forming red puddles all around the gashes on their necks.

Whispering, "wind style: air reaper." Naruto witnessed a figure made from a greenish energy form from the very air around them however because he had more time and chakra to pour into the jutsu than when he had used it against Zabuza, the figure was a much darker green than the one than the one that Zabuza had carelessly cut through.

With a slight wailing sound the figure leapt forward toward the mercenaries. The wailing sound scared most of the mercenaries stiff because in their minds it sounded like the wails of tortured souls who were calling out for those who others to join them in their suffering. With its scythe made from the same energy that its body was composed of it ripped through the first rank of mercenaries with ease and caused many of the other mercenaries behind them to be covered in the splattered remains that shot away from the energy scythe. Death of the first row in that manner, several of the mercenaries that were closest to the edge of the bridge tried to jump off of the bridge only to be met about halfway to the water by a vortex of wind blades.

As the air reaper advanced through the enemies Naruto started another wind technique with a number of hand seals and a whisper of, "wind style, vortex reaper." Mentally directing the numerous vortexes of wind blades around the sides of the bridge, Naruto watched grimly as every one of the mercenaries that tried to escape from the bridge looked as though their heads had been sent through a blender.

Kakashi and Zabuza could only stare as a genin cut through the ranks of mercenaries like they weren't even there. Zabuza had recognized the first jutsu that the blond had used from when he had faced the technique and now that he could see it's true power he was glad that he had faced a severely underpowered version of the technique when the blond had used it to rescue Kakashi. Kakashi upon seeing the technique was seriously thanking Naruto for using the weaker version on Zabuza during the earlier battle because it was very obvious that if he had used the technique as strong as it was right now than Kakashi would have been caught in the backlash of the jutsu the last time.

Sakura could only stare in mute horror as she watched Naruto tear through the large group of mercenaries in a small bloodbath. As the only member of team seven that was awake and didn't have senbon keeping them in an almost death like slumber, Sakura had stared stunned as Naruto of all people used the technique that had helped fend off Zabuza the first time. Rushing away from the bridge builder toward the edge of the bridge Sakura was noisily sick and every time it seemed that she was getting over the sickness she would look toward the battle and the nausea would return.

As the last ten remaining mercenaries stared in horror as their comrades fell before the green scythe or died in the vortexes next to the edge of the bridge, one of the their number got the bright idea to throw his sword at the green figure and hope that it would destroy it. The sword plunged right through the side of the green energy that made up the figure and from out the other side came numerous chunks of metal even as the figure gave a slight moaning sound. It sounded as though someone were trying to put more air into a balloon that was about ready to pop. After only a moment the green shrouded figure's form destabilized and blades of wind flew in every direction cutting everything in their path. Every single remaining mercenary except for one died under the barrage of wind blades.

Disappearing in a blur of speed, Naruto almost teleported to the side of the last mercenary and drew a short straight blade from a seal on his pants even as its sheath was reforming itself on his belt.

Holding his hand up to his severed shoulder the last mercenary looked up at Naruto in fear and said in a fearful shaking voice, "Why?"

"Because you stood in the way of my mission." Naruto said calmly as he drew the razor sharp edge of his blade through the mercenaries neck, cleanly decapitating the man. Turning Naruto flicked the blade even as he ran chakra through one of the seals on the hilt of the blade. What blood had remained on the blade seemed to slide off of in with the movement of the flick. In a single glob of blood it shot away from the blade and landed with a splat on a shivering Gato's forehead.

From the very moment that the blond had started fighting his mercenaries, Gato had, had a very bad feeling in his stomach. He felt helpless as his small army being decimated by one ninja. He had seen ninjas fight before of course, however those times had always been when he had gone to the chūnin exams or when he had been setting his small mercenary army on a weakened ninja when he hired missing ninja for missions. His body stood frozen as he watched his last mercenary murdered before his very eyes. His body shook as his knees gave out when the glob of blood hit his forehead and slid down his face. What little color was still in his face drained as he saw the ninja that had decimated his forces coming toward him and he tried to scramble back some so that he could keep his life a little longer. In a frightened voice he promised riches, money, women, and anything else he could think of to get this ninja to spare his life. Panicking and scrambling back he was almost willing to promise anything to keep this ninja far away from him. As the blond reached him with his sword held idly in his right hand, Gato looked up into Naruto's face and froze upon meeting his eyes.

"I see." Naruto began. "I thought that you were more innocent than that but your sins lay heavily upon you. Your soul is stained with the blood of innocents and blackened by the atrocities that you have committed. While you may not be beyond redemption there is only one thing that I can do for you." Spiraling black markings glittered in the whites of his eyes wrapping around his eyes giving his a somewhat creepy look.

Seeing the markings in Naruto's eyes was too much for Gato's sanity and his mind gave into the madness that had been growing since he witnessed the battle between Naruto and his mercenaries. "It doesn't matter if I die because ether way you all are doomed. When the shipping guild hears about my death they will sent people to destroy whoever did it. I may be no saint but compared to some of the members I'm an angel." Gato said as the madness ate away at his mind.

Turning his back on the now gibbering Gato, Naruto formed a hand seal that Kakashi and Zabuza weren't familiar with and said, "Death style: gateway to the end." Black chakra began layering itself in a sheet upon Gato's body and enshrouding him within it. The chakra began seeping into Gato's body and then with a sudden jerk tore itself away and formed into an orb with a screaming Gato's face staring at them in terror. The orb disappeared into a set of ethereal gates which appeared from nowhere and swallowed up the orb.

Making his way over to where Kakashi stood next to where Zabuza fell he witnessed the tail end of a tearful farewell between Zabuza and the girl who had worn the hunter ninja's mask. He still didn't even know her name. as for how she got over here he could see that the sealing tag that he had used on her hadn't been fully powered allowing her to wake back up far sooner than she would have otherwise. Lost in his thoughts of the battle Naruto almost didn't hear when Zabuza called out to him.

"Boy, when you leave here take my apprentice here with you." Zabuza said before coughing and spitting up some blood causing it to trail down his chin in twin lines from the corners of his mouth. "I'm the last person in the world who was close to Haku here in anyway and with what has been happening to bloodline users recently the last thing I can do to protect her is to ask you to take her away from this style of life and move her into a hidden village so that she will have some protection from the bloodline hunters." Coughing several more times Zabuza felt more blood leaking from his mouth before smiling and saying, "Haku, I'm leaving everything that I own to you except for my sword and the scroll that contains the money that I've been gathering for the bloodline rebels. Get both of those delivered to the bloodline rebels and my death at least will have some meaning. If I cannot even give them some more money and another weapon than I'm truly washed up as a shinobi."

Haku held Zabuza's hand for another few minutes before setting it down on the bridge just moments after Zabuza's chest stopped moving. Naruto who had sat down while waiting, tried to get up, however the world started spinning around him before the world darkened around him as he finally succumbed to chakra exhaustion.


	7. Chapter 7 recovery

Do not own Naruto in any way shape or form

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

It was almost thirty hours after the battle at the bridge that Naruto woke up and found out that just like Kakashi, he would have to wait at least another day in bed before he would be over the case of chakra exhaustion that had been caused on the bridge.

During the time that he had been out Haku had returned to the base that she and Zabuza had been using and sealed everything except for the two items that Zabuza had wanted sent to the bloodline rebels in mist and brought them back to Tsunami's house. She was waiting patiently for Naruto to awake to find out why Zabuza had asked that she stay with him.

After Naruto had woken up he had been very annoyed because unlike normal when he would release all of his seals for chakra control training, his chakra was coming back much more slowly, because when he had blacked out on the bridge all of the seals on his body had reset and tried to draw on reserves that he just barely had. Normally it took him an insignificant fraction of his total chakra to run the seals, however in his weakened state he almost didn't have that chakra to spare which is what was causing the abnormal strain on his body right now. He wouldn't be able to release the seals until that evening when he should have enough chakra to perform a master unlocking of all of the training seals that were on his body. Naruto knew that his body couldn't truly handle all of the strain that occurred whenever he fully unleashed his chakra which was a secondary reason that he had all of the seals on his body. Another reason that his chakra was returning so slowly in comparison was that his chakra pathways were still repairing themselves after Naruto had nearly emptied them in his attack on the mercenaries.

It wasn't until after he had worked through these thoughts that he noticed the two sealing scrolls that were next to him lying on the bed. One he knew contained Gato's mansion while it took him several hours to remember that the second scroll had come from the clones that had followed him to the bridge after they were done with what he had assigned. The clones had gone through everything that the mercenaries had on them and was still worth anything and sealed it up into a scroll to be sorted through later. Looking at the scroll now he could only sigh regretfully before placing both of the sealing scrolls into his bag and waiting for his chakra to replenish somewhat more.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Several hours later he could be seen poring over a large scroll with sealing designs on one half while the other half contained a huge number of handwritten notes all of which were in Naruto's handwriting. He was looking at is own designs and how they could be improved before he took the next test for sealing rank when it became available in roughly four weeks in the village hidden in Ink.

The village hidden in Ink wasn't exactly a true shinobi village, however that didn't mean that it didn't have threats and bargaining chips that were worth things to the larger villages. Ink supplied almost ninety percent of the commonly used seals that all five major villages used however it wasn't truly the main thing that the village did to earn it's income because most of the seals that they supplied to other villages were made by the various lower ranking members of their village like the village hidden in the leaves gave out D rank missions. Most of their income came from giving various tests and certifying ninja from all of the hidden villages as capable of various levels of the ninja arts.

The hidden Ink village had been started almost a century before any of the major hidden villages when the lord of the land of birds had seen an opportunity in the sealing arts which he had taken by hiring several of the greatest seal masters at the time and although his original plan changed they did agree with what he was proposing. Later on in history when all of the major hidden villages formed hidden Ink formed treaties with all of them. Essentially if any of the major hidden villages attacked them than all four of the other major hidden villages as well as all of the minor hidden villages would attack that hidden village. The major reason that none of the hidden villages would attack hidden Ink was that not only was such a thing against their village charters than they would lose access to the archives that were kept by hidden Ink. The archives contained a copy of every seal that had been brought to them and they were categorized by rank and each level of sealing certification would allow a higher amount of viewing in their archives. A number of members of each of the hidden villages stayed in hidden Ink throughout most of the year just studying sealing in the hopes of advancing their ranking because of some of the seals were legendary. Currently there were only two grandmaster level seal master and both made their home in the hidden Ink village. There were several master level seal specialists scattered throughout all of the major and minor hidden villages however the difference between master and grandmaster seals was great which was the reason that there were so few grandmasters in the sealing arts. All seals up to master level can be deciphered if the user is given enough time, however grandmaster level seals were almost impossible to decode unless you had an idea on how they worked or if you held the key to them. Other than the two grandmasters in Ink the last time a grandmaster certification was granted was to the fourth Hokage and Kushina Uzumaki on the same day because they had made it a competition between them to see who could get higher in the sealing arts. Since both of their deaths there hadn't been any grandmaster level certifications awarded to anyone new.

Naruto had the journeyman license from all of the times that he had been tested by the members of hidden Ink when they stopped by to deliver the quarterly supplies of seals to the village hidden in the leaves. He was just about ready to take the adept test, however that test had to be taken in hidden Ink itself because Journeyman was the highest that was allowed to be tested for outside of the hidden ink village. Restricted and forbidden licenses up to certain level were able to be tested at the same time as the advancement tests. Restricted licenses were for any seal that had to be applied to any living thing because of the chance that bad results would turn up. Forbidden seals were those like the cage bird seal that could kill the person that they are used on and the only reason that Naruto even had that license was that he was bored when he took it and that you needed a certain level in it to advance in rank even if you never used it.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Two days after he woke up Naruto was sitting at the table having breakfast with team seven and Tazuna's family while thinking back on how bored he had been over the last two days as his body shook off the lingering after effects of his stunt on the bridge. Other than working on his sealing skills Naruto had been reviewing his designs to see if he could improve the sealing arrays on the weapons he had forged. He had also started to work slowly on lower tier chakra control exercises that required little chakra to perform. He had also idly thought up several new designs that he wanted to try making when he got home.

Idly he also had looked up the next technique on his list that he was going to learn. Oddly enough he had finished with the reaper techniques for now. The reaper techniques that he knew were part of a series of techniques that spanned across all of the elements however each element carried a name that was included in its name. All of the wind techniques in the style carried the name reaper while every other element type carried another name such as the earth style hunter techniques. Naruto had decided to learn all of the techniques in the style when he had learned that he carried some of the Shinigami's energy in his body because the whole style was named the Shinigami style. There were two hundred sixty-five techniques within the reaper style and they spanned through all of the elements including the sub elements. Naruto knew twenty-three of the techniques in that he could perform them, however only seven of those techniques were ready to be used in battle because of the requirements that were written in the scroll next to each technique.

Thinking about how his techniques worked was also what led his mind back to what he had done on the bridge and how many lives he had taken. Naruto barely made it to the forest outside of Tazuna's house before he threw up. Some people killed with no feelings, others enjoyed killing, still others locked the feelings that occurred when they killed deep within their mind until they released them and Naruto fell into that last category because of the way he suppressed his emotions over killing the mercenaries until he was ready to release them. When thinking about his techniques he had unintentionally brought all of those emotions and memories to the front of his mind so that he had to deal with them as he started to shake uncontrollably.

Swallowing back the bile that had been forming in the back of his throat, Naruto shook those thoughts away. He sternly told himself that now wasn't the time to lose himself to his emotions. Pulling out his sealing scrolls he unsealed more sealing supplies to work through his sealing designs that he was working on currently.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

It wasn't until the next morning that Naruto was disturbed away from working on his sealing designs as well as working his body back up to full power after the massive use of chakra on the bridge.

"Naruto," Kakashi began as he walked into the room while scratching the back of his head nervously. "Um, I know that I probably should have spoken to you about this before however with the both of us recovering from the battle it slipped my mind. What were those techniques that you used on the bridge?"

"They were part of a series of techniques that are very difficult to learn." Naruto said as he turned away from a sealing array that he had been building from an idea that he had gotten from Tenten. "I don't know all of them yet but I do know most of the techniques that are wind based because of it being my primary element."

Seeing Naruto shudder a little when talking about the techniques helped Kakashi decide his next question, "You took a great many lives on the bridge, how do you feel?"

"Horrible." Naruto responded with a grimace as well as a shudder. "I can still see all of their faces and see the life flowing from them at my hands and techniques."

Kakashi sighed as this looked like one of those conversations that he had been hoping to avoid for some time with his own students. "Naruto, what you have to realize is that a huge number of the techniques in this world are lethal in some manner. It just seems that no matter what happens one shinobi or another is just going to come up with even more deadly techniques. How you're responding to taking all of those lives is reassuring to me though because I have seen many shinobi who after their first kill started getting a thrill out of killing. With the way that you are reacting I can see that if possible you wouldn't take those lives so I know that you aren't becoming like the monster that you have sealed into you. Killing should never truly get easier but with time the faces that images that haunt your dreams should fade but they will never truly be forgotten."

Some of the dark feelings in Naruto had disappeared from Naruto during the short conversation and helped start a two hour long conversation with Kakashi that helped dispel some more of the anger and horror that Naruto still felt toward himself.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

The next morning consisted of going through all of the things that he had sealed since the start of the mission interspersed with some insane cackling as several clones worked on altering exploding tags in any way that their minds could come up with. Even while Naruto and the majority of his clones worked their way through the items that were sealed they couldn't help but watch some of the oddities that were spawned with all of the random alterations that were done to both the exploding tag seals as well as the storage scroll seals. Some of the alterations just fizzled out while others took more or less chakra than their starting edition while others bordered on the bizarre like the thirty foot tall dango stick that grew out of the ground when he had activated the one seal. That one was a lucky find as Naruto had forgotten to bring lunch with him that day and while he would have loved a bowl of ramen in this case dango was a more than acceptable substitute so after having a clone try it and finding out that it was delicious he ate his way through it.

Normally it was dangerous to experiment with seals the way that Naruto was but one day out of every two weeks Naruto would just let his clones run wild with seals just to see what he could create with them. Generally when he did this he had a fifty foot barrier around the area that he was using for these experiments and had as a precaution set it so that there was a partial storage seal set up across his experimentation ground. The storage seal would suck up everything within its range into it until nothing is left because there is no way to unseal the items that had been thrown into it. Quite a number of his pranks had come from ideas spawned from this type of experimentation and it was mostly due to the seals that he had created this way that he had been able to advance as far as he had in the sealing arts. After he had lost all of his supplies due to having to use his failsafe partial storage seal, Naruto had wised up and only used what materials that were copied when he made his clones so that he would be getting rid of only chakra constructs anyway.

Still working his way through Gato's mansion Naruto was startled to discover a ledger that had the exact counts of Gato's fortune and where he obtained all of it right down to the last ryo. It also appeared that Gato despised banks because in many hidden locations around the house Gato had hidden his vast fortune as well as a rather specialized sealing scroll. There were of coarse many other documents and belongings, however the amount of money and the sealing scroll were the things that caught most of his interest. The money caught his interest because how often are you going to see almost a billion ryo in various denominations all in one place at one time. The sealing scroll on the other hand was a blood storage scroll and was connected to what it contained in such as way that even non ninja could use it. It wasn't locked to one bloodline or type so it could be opened by anyone just by wiping a small amount of blood across the primer seal to ether seal or unseal its contents. Considering that he had yet to find Gato's yacht and that he had heard rumors several years back while being tested for his next licenses in the sealing arts about a seal that had been commissioned by a civilian who couldn't use chakra that fit the description of what he was seeing Naruto decided that it just might be a good idea to open the scroll over water because of what he thought it was. Carefully organizing everything as he left he took the ledger with him so that he could figure out how to allocate the funds because from the way that the ledger looked, Gato had poured a much larger amount of funds into getting Wave under his control than he had managed to squeeze out of the villagers of Wave. From the plans in the back he also found out why Gato had decided to take over Wave which were deeply disturbing in their own right.

Gato had been conspiring with two of the upper members of the shipping guild to take over this island upon which Gato would marry their widowed sister and proclaim himself daimio of Wave. The plan went on to vaguely list further plans to start a shinobi village in Wave and what few plans there were in that regard made all of the evil things that Danzo Shimura the War Hawk of the leaf village look almost saintly in comparison. They had planned to rule the world a little bit at a time until they had a large enough fighting force to crush all of those who stood against them. The plans also mentioned that aboard the yacht there were a great number of shinobi artifacts that Gato had been gathering for some time through shady deals as well as killing off missing ninja and taking their belongings and bounties. Also according to the plans the other members of the plot were stirring up unrest between the 4 hidden villages by doing various acts which couldn't be traced back to them.

One of the letters in the documents that Naruto had liberated from Gato's mansion held further proof that Gato's partners were responsible for most of the major border disputes that had been leaving the leaf village so shorthanded recently. Throughout all of the documents it was just one bad revelation after another that Naruto would have loved to have dumped off on someone else, however that would have to wait until he got back to the leaf village.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Several laborious hours later Naruto had finished going through the documents and had divided up all of Gato's fortune fairly so that everyone of the villagers of Wave got back all of the money that they had been cheated out of as well as interest on it. The documents had also told where Gato had been keeping the captives on the island and what he had planned on using them for. They would be alright for several more days because considering the nature of the captives, Gato had arranged for them to be completely cut off from his men so that nothing unfortunate could occur because of any indiscretions that the men might commit. He and his personal body guards would visit them every week with several bags of rations for the women that he held captive for his future plans. Luckily Gato had had the forethought to have them keep two months of supplies with them in the cavern at any given time because had known that something might happen to where he would no longer make his deliveries. Of course Gato had had a very malicious reason for what he had done but he had still made sure that his captives weren't too badly off all things considered.

Looking up into the sky, Naruto estimated that he only had about an hour of sunlight left in the day and decided that it might be a better idea if he made his way to release the captives the following morning because of distance involved between the village and the cave. Naruto might have been able to run the distance in moments however the captives would take at least several hours to travel back to the village. With those thoughts in his head he sealed all of the things that he had been unsealing earlier and dispelled all of the still experimenting clones.

Entering the house, Naruto was given a semi small meal and went off to bead early so as to get a head start the next morning when he planned on releasing the captives that Gato had held hostage.

Before sleep overtook him his thoughts turned to the bridge and he smiled when he remembered that it was almost completely done. Sure it would take another week before they would be done however considering where it was located the extra time and funds that went into its construction weren't wasted because it would handle the wear and tear of the elements .

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Making his way toward the cave the next morning Naruto thought about what training he could do to get over the last aftereffects of the battle on the bridge. He had suffered this type of injury before back when he had first started training and taken care not to be put in that position again. If nothing else he knew that his body would be back to full power just before the bridge was finished at it's current rate. The bridge might have been able to be finished faster, however its current speed had slowed down some because of the fact that Gato had perished and with him, his control over the ports and how much the villagers were allowed to bring in. About a quarter of the workforce that Tazuna had been using had gathered up some marketable goods from across the island and taken them to market to help restock some of the islands food supply so that they could live more comfortably after the bridge was finished.

Reaching the cave entrance he searched for the hidden alcove that had been mentioned in the documents that he had liberated from Gato had mentioned contained the key to the cell that contained the captives that Gato had kept.

Finding the key he made his way into the cave and holding up a palm full of fire made his way, through the cave toward where the hostages were kept. Getting to the door he could see the light from beyond the doorway even as he inserted the key into the keyhole. Turning the key and opening the door, he was greeted to a very strange sight as he looked around the improvised cell that Gato had held a fair number of hostages in.

The cavern had about a ten foot ceiling and was roughly shaped like an octagon. It was roughly fifty feet across at its widest diameter and had four large pillars that were set up around the center of the cavern that were obviously not naturally occurring because Naruto could see the stonework that had been used to make them. The pillars had most likely been placed there to make sure that there wasn't a cave in. Along one wall there were two places that intersected small freshwater streams which had been put to several uses. One had been used for washing and getting water for cooking from while the other had been curtained off as a makeshift restroom. As he stepped into the room, the eyes of all of the hostages turned on him. Over fifty pairs of eyes on him were making him somewhat nervous as he hadn't quite thought this whole situation out before he had come here to release them.

"Who are you," one of the women asked harshly as most of them went for makeshift weapons while eyeing him warily.

"Naruto Uzumaki, genin of the leaf," Naruto said nervously as he tried to figure out how to explain what had happened to these women who had been held captive by Gato for almost half a year. "How much of what's been going on do you all know about?"

Still eyeing him suspiciously one of the women answered, "Gato, completely cut us off from all information from outside these walls and the only thing he would ever talk about was what types of food to bring in his next delivery. The only information that we have been getting is from whenever they bring a new person in. the last time we got someone new was about five months ago according to our delivery schedule."

"Ah, I see." Naruto said with a sigh as he would have to explain the whole situation to them. "Within the last four months, Tazuna has been building a bridge to the mainland in the hopes that it will bring up wave's economy. About a third of the way through construction Gato found out about the bridge and started threatening Tazuna. When the bridge reached half way Gato sent some mercenaries after Tazuna. Tazuna luckily escaped and made his way to the leaf village and hired the best team that he could afford. There have been several battles since Tazuna has made his way back to Wave that ended in Gato's death as well as the deaths of all of his bodyguards and enforcers. When going through the documents from Gato's manor I ran across some information that told where you all were as well as how to get in."

Listening to the hastily abbreviated tale most of the women let out sighs of relief and lowered their weapons before one who had spoken before asked, "What happens now?"

"That really all depends on you all as I'm just here to let you out of this cell." Naruto said as a slight amount of relief flooded his system when the weapons lowered. He would have been able to beat them all however he most likely would have had to kill them to get them to stop and that was something that he didn't wish to contemplate if he could avoid it.

"You know, its kind of ironic that you came to let us free now when we could have been free at any time in the last three weeks with our escape tunnel." another one of the women said as she pulled up one of the beads to revel a crude trap door. Under the trap door was a tunnel that stretched in the direction of the village.

"If you had a way out, why didn't you escape already?" Naruto asked as he once again felt confusion.

"Gato used to check on us pretty regularly when he was alive and would do a head count to make sure that we were all there." the first woman who had spoken replied to Naruto's question. "Before he had us in isolation there were some instances where one of his minions would get greedy and would steal up to several women who had been held captive and use and abuse them until he was satisfied. It was for that reason that we were isolated from his mercenaries."

"I really don't need to hear any more about this." Naruto said as he looked around the room again while this time focusing on just what he would need to help them carry back to the village. "If you would pack what you would like to take with you, I'll help you transport it back to the village."

Almost an hour later Naruto was staring at a huge stack of belongings that he would need to help them transport. It seemed that every one of them had secreted away numerous items during there stay and now they wanted them to come back to the village with them. Pulling out one of his highest capacity sealing scrolls, Naruto looked from the pile of things to the scroll several times as he tried to guess whether or not all of it would fit in one scroll or if he would need another. Deciding to be cautious he sealed about half the pile in one scroll before pulling out another to carry the rest.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Getting Gato's hostages back to the village wasn't a very pleasant experience for Naruto because of all the complaining that they did. Some of them had been captive for over a year and while they knew the general layout of the island from that time, the island's layout had changed significantly since then and several times the hostages had insisted on taking shortcuts that weren't there anymore after Gato had started restricting people to the side of the island closest to the village to have a better grip on them. He had had some of his less distinguishable mercenaries follow villagers for several weeks and determine al of the places that he would have to destroy to keep them isolated to the one section of the island.

Since he had gotten back several hours ago Naruto had been helping the former hostages reacquaint themselves with the village as well as recover their things and help them move back into their homes. He thought that it might be a good idea to wind down some before he made his way back to Tazuna's house because right then Naruto was extremely stressed from all of the complaints that he had been given over the course of helping the former hostages over the day.

Starting at the beach closest to Tazuna's house he started to run around the island in a circle keeping a steady pace as he followed the wildly curving beaches. From maps he had seen Naruto knew that the beach that ran around the land of waves was roughly ten miles long and that because of the shape of the island, it's land mass was significantly smaller than other islands that had the same amount of beach.

The run had been a good idea because it allowed him to get in some training as well as keep an eye out for any retaliation from the shipping guild for Gato's death. From the documents that Naruto had from Gato's mansion, Naruto knew that the shipping guild could go ether way depending on how the higher ranking members felt about Gato's death. From what little Naruto had heard and seen of how Gato acted there was a good chance that the shipping guild would just write his death off because he died because of his own actions. On the other hand if what those plans that he had found were true there was also a good chance that the guild would send in an army for cutting some of their plans short.

It wasn't until he was just a little over half way around the island that he saw the ships that were anchored on one of the few safe places to land on the island with larger ships. As he watched he that the ships had already discharged several hundred mercenaries that looked to be much better fighters than any that Gato had hired. As Naruto watched the ships were still discharging more mercenaries as well as a huge amount of supplies to the camp that was being formed on the shore. Almost absently Naruto put his hands into the cross shaped seal for the shadow clone technique and stood there for a moment. Looking down at his hands Naruto poured enough chakra into the technique to summon up several dozen shadow clones and ordered them to scope out the camp without being caught.

Half an hour later Naruto had most of the details of the camp laid out on a scroll in front of him as he looked it over and jotted down more information as more shadow clones dispersed. Sealing up the scroll, Naruto left his hiding place and began finishing his run so that he could get back to Tazuna's house quickly because at that point it was quicker to finish his lap around the island than to backtrack to Tazuna's house. He needed to get the information to Kakashi so that they could plan what to do because the mercenaries that were being unloaded off of the ships were almost ten times better than the ones that Gato had had with him and that was before the ones that had some shinobi or samurai training were counted amongst their number.

(Authors note) had a family member die recently and it threw the schedule I was trying to do way off so as of right now I'm going to try for a chapter every two weeks with a hopeful return to a chapter every week in April. Also just to point this out before I'm asked the reason that Naruto is recovering for a fair portion of this chapter isn't because he hurt his body but rather that he had locked up portions of his chakra to give him better control however this also had the side effect of making it so that his body wasn't used to the full power of his chakra which is the main reason for his long recovery. His body itself was almost completely healed by the time that he woke up rather it was his chakra pathways that had been damaged during the battle because of the rapid expenditure of chakra that was much more potent than normal. If that makes sense anyway. Just my thoughts on the matter of why this chapter turned out the way it did.

Valor.


	8. Chapter 8 prep

Do not own Naruto in any way shape or form

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Arriving back at Tazuna's Naruto was out of breath and had to take a moment to catch it back before he could even start to look for Kakashi to report to him what he had seen. He found Kakashi in his room doing basic exercises while looking at a small tablet that had several names written on it. Hurrying up to Kakashi, Naruto hurriedly began explaining what he had seen to Kakashi. This method may have worked if it weren't for the fact that Naruto was speaking so fast that his words were jumbling together.

"Naruto, calm down." Kakashi said after almost a minute of listening to Naruto mangle and condense words in ways not meant to be heard by the human ear.

"I was running around the island and I ran across several ships that were anchored out of sight of the village that were carrying a large number of mercenaries." Naruto said in a much slower voice as he forced himself to be understood. The next half an hour was spent answering Kakashi's ever increasing questions as Kakashi tried to get all of the details that Naruto could remember and his best guess to what he didn't know.

At the end of it, Kakashi closed his orange book which had been open the whole time and said that he would go take a quick look himself to check Naruto's information and that Naruto shouldn't bother him because if it was as hostile as they thought, then there would be some major planning that Kakashi would have to do as the ranking ninja on the mission.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Around half an hour after Kakashi left, Naruto was sitting on the small balcony on the second floor of Tazuna's home while working on his sealing projects once again. There was a small almost hesitant knock on the door that knocked Naruto's mind completely off of what he had been thinking about. As he was unable to get back to his thoughts on the seal that he had been working on Naruto flipped the door open and was surprised to find Haku standing on the other side of the door. Naruto hadn't had much contact with Haku since she had come to the house with them after the battle on the bridge and now he found himself wondering just what the upcoming conversation would entail.

"Uzumaki-san, I apologies for interrupting what you were doing just now, however I think that we both have been putting this off enough." Haku said as she glanced at the sealing arrays that were carefully written in the scroll he was studying. "I have been having trouble controlling my grief over Zabuza, since his death and have been avoiding you as much as possible because of my grief. When Zabuza asked you to take me with you, I believe that he saw something within you. I do not know what it was that he saw in you however as that was his last wish I shall abide by it and I am looking forward to leaving the lifestyle of a missing ninja behind."

"That's kind of overwhelming now that I think about it." Naruto said as he thought back to Zabuza's last moments. "I don't know how much I can do for you to help you get out of your current life style, however, I'm willing to try."

"Thank you, Naruto." Haku said more quietly than any of her earlier statements. Louder she continued, "There is one more issue that I can think of right off of the top of my head that I don't know how to address."

"And that would be?" Naruto asked as he tried to remember the steps that a ninja who had been raised in a foreign place but hadn't been connected to any other village could go through the paperwork to become a member of the hidden leaf village.

"Do you know if the hokage would even let me inside the village or would they pull something like Stone or Cloud would and turn me into breeding stock?" Haku said with a slight fear present in her voice as she remembered the stories that she had heard about what had happened to those who had fallen into those kinds of circumstances.

"Well, I could send him a message and ask him if you'd like?" Naruto asked as he thought about what it could be like to be captured for whatever specialties that you happened to possess.

"How would it be delivered in time for a message to make it back to us in less than the four days that are left until the bridge in finished?" Haku asked in confusion as something along the ideas just screamed out to her that it wasn't possible under the normal rules of reality.

"I'll show you in a minute but for now we need to get a letter to explain everything to the Hokage." Naruto said as he pulled out a blank scroll and a brush and started to write a letter that would hopefully explain what all had been happening in Wave while he had been there on his mission. There were a number of places in the letter that Naruto thought that he could explain better so in the end he wound up scrapping the letter and starting over while using the first letter as a base to start from. By the time that Naruto had begun writing the letter over for the fourth time Haku had actively started helping even though she still had no idea of how they were going to have the letter delivered.

It took almost another hour after that to finish the letter to both their satisfaction. When they finished Haku commented, "I still don't see how this letter is going to help because in all honesty because I still don't know how you're going to get it to him."

"Watch and see." Naruto said with a smile as he bit his thumb just hard enough to draw blood before quickly forming several hand seals. "Summoning jutsu." Naruto called out as a sealing array extended from where he had slapped his hand down on the ground before a puff of smoke sprang up in the area.

As the smoke cleared, Haku was startled when a new voice said, "Yo, so what did you summon me for today Naruto?"

"I need a letter delivered to the hokage as quickly as possible and I didn't know anyway faster than summoning you to deliver it." Naruto said, a smile forming on his face as he spoke to the still enshrouded figure.

"You know what I and my siblings ask for when you want us to deliver letters, Naruto." the figure said as the smoke finally dissipated enough for Haku to see what was talking clearly. When she finally saw what it was that was speaking her eyes nearly bugged out of her head in surprise as how often did you expect to meet a foot tall talking frog.

"Of course I remember, I mean it's not like you've changed it in the three years that I've known you, Gamakichi." Naruto said with a full blown grin on his face from Haku's reaction. Reaching into the pocket of his jacket there was a slight popping sound before a small amount of smoke escaped from around his hand before Naruto removed a small bag that held a small amount of candy. "This is all I'm going to give you for now but I'll give you some more later when you return with the reply. Is that OK with you Kichi?"

"That sound's good, Naruto." Gamakichi said as his face wore a wide smile at the thought of the candy. Hopping over to Naruto, Gamakichi couldn't help but thank his luck at it being Naruto who wanted a letter delivered rather than Jiraiya. Jiraiya almost never had sweets on him however he would send several bags of sweets to the mountain whenever he did buy them. The problem with that was the fact that all of the younger toads loved sweets and usually when Jiraiya sent them to the mountain they would be split among all of the younger toads. Naruto on the other hand always carried several small bags of sweets around with him so that if he needed the toads help than he could give them the sweets. Another great thing was that in addition to all of the other things that Naruto had done with his ridiculous training schedule, he had taken the time to have his clones foray into the wide world of cooking and most of his attempts at anything harder than plain rice were in the dessert category and when he got them right he would always summon several of the younger toads to help him make sure he made it as best he could. Gamakichi could still remember when he and Gamatatsu had gotten to try some of the second batch of ice cream that Naruto had successfully created. Of course being toads they hadn't been able to have nearly as much as they wanted but over all the younger toads got a much better deal from Naruto than they did from Jiraiya, while the older toads got a better deal from Jiraiya when he went drinking with them.

Naruto handed the scroll over to Gamakichi and watched as the little toad disappeared in a small plume of smoke before he said, "And now we wait."

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Hiruzen had just finished the paperwork for the day and was almost idly leafing through the upper level missions that still needed to be assigned when he felt a small surge of chakra for just an instant before he saw the telltale plume of smoke that always accompanied summons when they were summoned. Discreetly palming a kunai Hiruzen waited for the smoke to disperse and reveal the summons within.

As Hiruzen watched the smoke dissipate he was very relieved to see the toad that had been hidden in the smoke. Quickly returning the kunai to its hiding place the old hokage quickly proceeded around his desk to get the letter that the summon carried to him while wondering just what it said as it wasn't like Jiraiya to send messages like this very often and he had just received Jiraiya's latest intelligence report just the other day.

"Yo, got a letter here for you, Hokage-sama." Gamakichi said as he passed the scroll over to the old kage as he once again took in the office he found himself in.

"So, what prompted Jiraiya to send this message this time?" Hiruzen asked as he made his way back around his desk with the scroll. Reaching the seat Hiruzen was surprised by the handwriting that he saw when he unfurled the scroll. The small summon was silent as Hiruzen made his way through the scroll and laughed when Hiruzen had been surprised to see Naruto's distinctive writing in the scroll. After reading through the scroll Hiruzen was idly tapping on his desk as he went over the new information that he had just been given, including the fact that Naruto could summon toads and that apparently Jiraiya didn't know that he could.

Still mulling over the new information that he had been given Hiruzen pulled out a blank scroll and began writing a short letter telling Naruto how to handle the situation. At the end of the letter Hiruzen painstakingly inscribed a small storage seal, which he then activated with a small pulse of chakra. Calling one of his aides Hiruzen asked for several different forms as well as a couple different booklets from one of the other offices. Upon receiving all of them, Hiruzen sealed them into the storage seal that he had written on the end of the letter. Furling the scroll he sealed it shut with one of the stamps in the office before handing the scroll over to the small toad summons so that it could take this new letter back to Naruto. Another moment of thought overcame Hiruzen as he handed the small summon the scroll and he opened one of the drawers on his desk and pulled out several pieces of candy from within it and handed them to the small summon as well.

"Thanks, Hokage-sama." Gamakichi said as he hid the candy in his vest so that his siblings wouldn't see it. "Is there anything else that I'll need to take back to Naruto?"

"No, that should be it." Hiruzen said as he allowed a small smile to form on his face. Seeing the small toad summon disappear in another plume of smoke Hiruzen allowed the smile to get much larger and started giggling a little bit as he pulled out an orange book from within his desk, where he had hidden it. He knew that sooner or later he would have to inform the daimyo of what he had just learned but then again from what he had learned about Naruto's dating habits it might just be best to let Naruto handle that directly through the daimyo's wife.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Kakashi moved from one shadow to the next as he made his way carefully around the large camp that had been erected on the remote shore of Wave as he scoped out the situation. Sure enough the mercenaries had been hired by the shipping guilds and sent to the island as soon as they had received word that Gato had died there. From what Kakashi remembered almost none of the members of the guild liked one another very well however they all refused to allow one of their own to die at the hands of an outsider without retaliation.

As he suppressed his chakra as much as possible, Kakashi was surprised to find another piece of information that Naruto had given him turned out to be correct. There were several mercenaries among the group that had received part of the training exercises for shinobi or samurai.

Samurai unlike shinobi focused in on the bodies physical energies and mainly used them to reinforce their bodies and weapons. It's not that the same thing isn't possible with chakra however using straight physical energy was much easier than using chakra which contained every energy that the body produced. Generally only the highest ranking samurai were able to use their energies for anything other than reinforcing themselves and their weapons, however even with that alone they were still a pain to take out because there were very few techniques that any shinobi knew that would allow them to pierce most samurai's skin which was generally harder than most reinforced steel armor and their armor was even worse because it was reinforced to the same degree as their skin. Kakashi knew that his chidori could force it's way through the armor however even he could only use it for a limited number of times a day.

On the bright side there weren't any mercenaries that had been trained in the spiritual arts that were practiced by the monks which were present in nearly every country. The monks usually chose to not get involved with anything that was part of any physical confrontation because they normally didn't feel the need to interfere in such matters, however Kakashi knew of at lease a dozen times where the monks had intruded on the various wars over the last two decades. However if he remembered right every time that they had interfered was because of some samurai or shinobi doing something stupid near one of the monk's monasteries. Kakashi vaguely remembered one time when a stone chūnin had used a version of the swamp of the underworld technique to try and catch a fleeing mist shinobi in the third great war and had caught the middle of one of the monasteries several rice fields ruining the whole field. The monks had been less than happy with the event and had destroyed every stone and mist shinobi that came within a mile of their monasteries lands. Monks used very unique fighting styles and regardless of how effective they normally used it, it was generally a proven face that the monks in charge of each one of the monasteries could fight on an even ground with most of the kage level shinobi although almost everyone outside of the monasteries was agreed that the monks used a very odd form of combat it worked for them. All in all Kakashi was happy that the mercenaries didn't have anyone who had even the beginnings of trainings in those arts.

Making sure that he had an accurate count of the mercenaries as well as an accurate count of the number of those who had some shinobi or samurai training, Kakashi exited the camp and began making his way back to Tazuna's while looping around on himself several times to make sure that he wasn't being followed.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Almost an hour after Naruto had sent Gamakichi off with the letter, Naruto had started to feel an itch on the back of his hand which meant that one of the toad summons was trying to get his attention to summon it. Biting his thumb once again, Naruto rapidly formed the hand seals for the summoning before slapping his hand on the ground once more. Once again, Gamakichi appeared from within the plume of smoke while grinning and holding a scroll that was very different from the one that Naruto had sent him off with.

Haku who had been sitting comfortably on a chair on the other side of the room reading a book on medical ninjutsu, that she had recovered from her and Zabuza's hideout while Naruto had been recovering, hadn't been paying attention when she had seen Naruto get up from his book on sealing experiments and had been more than slightly surprised when the toad from earlier had once again appeared in the room. Just after Gamakichi had disappeared from the room the first time, Naruto had told her that Gamakichi and his family were toads and that they were very annoyed with anyone who couldn't tell that they were toads on first sight. Closing the book, Haku moved over to look over Naruto's shoulder to find out what the verdict was from the Hokage.

Closing the letter before Haku could find out what was written on it, Naruto turned and said, "Well, while he wants you to fill out a large stack of paperwork it doesn't seen like he is going to object to you moving to the village Haku."

"Where is the paperwork and may I read the letter?" Haku asked as she was slightly miffed about not being able to read it over his shoulder.

"Oh." Naruto said sheepishly as he unfolded the letter again and put it on the small table in the room. "Sorry, I don't like people reading over my shoulder. It's not that I don't want you to read the letter, after all if my future would change based on the contents of a letter, I know that I'd want to read it. Oh, and the paperwork that he wants you to fill out is sealed at the bottom of the letter."

Channeling chakra into the bottom of the letter as she read through the letter a small stack of paperwork appeared with small red notes stuck to it where it needed to be filled out and small green notes where it was optional to fill out. Finishing reading Haku saw the Naruto had been right, it hadn't been that he hadn't wanted her to read it but rather that he truly hadn't wanted her to read it over his shoulder.

Naruto seeing Haku starting in on the paperwork to become a citizen of the village hidden in the leaves, knew that at the moment there wasn't really anything that he could do to help her until she finished the paperwork that she had been sent. Shrugging his shoulders he started back in on a journal of sealing experiments and became oblivious to the rest of the world for awhile.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

It had been a couple hours since Haku had started in on the paperwork that the Hokage had sent and Naruto had finished his book and was searching for something to do as he had just finished the last journal that he had brought with him. Already the mission had run longer than expected because of the interruptions that Gato had caused before his demise as well as the fact that Naruto had seen what he thought was a mercenary camp that was bent on avenging Gato.

Going through the things that he had brought with him for the mission once again, Naruto was looking for something to do that he had brought with him. Coming on his weapons scroll, he decided to go through his taijutsu and weapon katas until Kakashi got back. Unsealing his weapons and strapping them on in their appropriate places Naruto made his way outside and a few hundred feet from Tazuna's house to make sure that he didn't damage the house accidentally.

Going through the katas Naruto found his muscles resisting the movement more than they should and mentally frowned because that meant that he wasn't doing the motions properly. Looking back Naruto decided that rather than not doing the motions right, he had ignored one of the basic requirements of taijutsu. Naruto only practiced on taijutsu the bare minimum because most of the time there had been other more interesting things that he could do with his time. Before he had left the leaf village on this mission, he had barely forced himself to practice on his taijutsu maybe once or twice a week. Of course that wasn't including the times that he tried out one or anther weapon that he had made but again he hadn't practiced very much with the weapons ether.

Going through the weapon katas that he knew just showed Naruto even more flaws in his forms until he reached one of his favored weapons. A katana with a blade three feet long rested in Naruto's hand as he moved his way through the forms for the weapon that he had learned some years previously much more easily than any other of his katas because of the number of times that he had had to test out the custom swords that he had been commissioned to make. Making more than a hundred weighted training blades that were comparable to normal blades and having to test each one out himself to make sure that the weight was still balanced correctly had apparently upped his skill for this one weapon at least. The sword that he had made and tested for Tenten hadn't hurt matters any as well. Unlike any of the other katanas that Naruto had made, the one in his hands was unique in that how it had turned out had been a partial accident. It had been the first sword that Naruto had tried to incorporate a sealing matrix on and while it hadn't worked quite right it also hadn't turned out wrong ether. The blade was silver with five black lines extending from the reverse of the blade which was also black and if you looked closely you would see that the black section had once been much lighter and that the black came from seals being layered on top of each other until only the darkness remained. The hilt was the same silver color as the blade with seals spiraling down it to its end which also carried the distinctive black color of seals being layered on top of one another, however a fair number of the seals were hidden beneath a thick leather grip that was wrapped around the hilt and painted with more seals. Ever since he had made it he had been testing it in various manners and testing on incorporating more effects into it as he got them to work in other projects. It was still a prototype and he had recorded everything that he had done to it and how. As soon as he managed to break it or figured out how to fit all of the things that he had on it into a tighter format he would probably make a new one but for now it worked just fine.

Sliding through his stances Naruto found himself doing fairly well however he wasn't doing the best he ever had with the katana, especially since the last time he had drawn the blade was to incorporate the same features that he had added to Tenten's new sword and that had been a little over a month before he had finally graduated from the academy. Finishing the katas Naruto started moving through the special attacks that the seals on the katana allowed him to perform.

Finishing with the twenty-four attacks that he could remember off the top of his head Naruto pulled open the scroll that he carried around with the sword and started on the techniques that he hadn't remembered as well as trying to use the techniques that he had theorized but had never successfully performed.

~~~~~~~~~~sfhf~~~~~~~

Kakashi was almost back to the house and while he could have been back sooner, he had needed the space to think over a plan on how to take out that many mercenaries with only six ninja. Another factor that jumped to mind was that of the ninja he had access to he only knew one that had killed before was Naruto and even only he had made very many kills recently. Not even Ichi Ichi could remedy this situation because the mercenaries were going to target the members of his team and the others at Tazuna's house before any others with him. Kakashi, was still on a mission to protect the bridge builder and his family.

Wandering his way back slightly off the path Kakashi heard some sounds that didn't fit in with the wildlife that he had found so far in Wave. Following the sounds he found Naruto training with a fairly good looking katana and running through some attacks that Kakashi wouldn't have believed possible if he wasn't seeing them right in front of his eyes. Staying hidden as he sat there Kakashi watched as Naruto kept pulling off ever more elaborate attacks that Kakashi wouldn't normally have believed, while Kakashi worked on a plan in his mind that he hoped would work.

Finally seeing Naruto stopping, Kakashi decided that it was time to come out of hiding and get Naruto back to the house so that they could start planning the destruction of the mercenary camp. Hopping down from his perch Kakashi barely managed to dodge a wind blade that was flung at him from Naruto's sword as Naruto reacted before he looked at who he was attacking.

"Yo." Kakashi said as he waved and watched several silver hairs float toward the ground with his good eye. With his one visible eye taking on a more stern stare Kakashi continued, "You know, Naruto, you should really try and get your first shocked reaction changed from flinging a killing technique when your startled to just restraining whatever startled you."

"Sorry, Kakashi." Naruto said as he thought about his reaction and mentally added to his training. Later he would sit and scratch his head as he tried to come up with a way to train away reflexes that he had worked years to develop as well as how to not completely get rid of the reaction.

"That's alright, Naruto." Kakashi said as his one visible eye twisted up ward and formed an eye smile. "There have been many times in my life where I've reacted a lot more powerfully than I should have. Anyway, lets get back up to the house so that we can go over my plan and get ready for later tonight."

Smiling slightly Naruto gathered up the few things that his training had caused him to put down around the area and to sheath his sword. setting off at a run toward Tazuna's house. Naruto tried to beat Kakashi there only to be beaten by the jonin's speed.

As they were in route back to the rest of the team, Kakashi was looking at Naruto from behind as he effortlessly kept pace with the younger ninja. Ever since Naruto had joined them on the mission he had been watching Naruto because he wasn't acting as Kakashi had expected and just now Kakashi had had a small revelation into Naruto's personality. Naruto had had very little help from the adults in his life and with all that happened in his life and he displayed many things which could be taken as him being more maturity than what he had. Kakashi was surprised that Naruto had made it past the physiological portion of the tests in the academy with his report the way that it was. Seeing the slight childishness that Naruto had just displayed Kakashi also saw that back when Naruto had been in the academy the act that he had put on hadn't been totally a lie as many of the upper level ninja now believed. Focusing on the house rapidly coming closer Kakashi put on a burst of speed and arrived before Naruto while putting his thoughts out of his head for later with one last though passing through his mind. He hoped that sooner or later Naruto found out who he truly was with everything that it entailed, maybe not his parents identities but rather his own personality.

The next hour was spent going over the plan that Kakashi had made and each and every one of them suggesting additions or ways that the plan should be altered with Kakashi dismissing more than half the suggestions as ones that he had had previously but discarded because of other factors. At the end of the planning session most of the ninja were satisfied with their positions in the plan but were still grumbling because of the place that they wanted in it. Of them only Sakura was truly happy to be on the team of three that would be guarding Tazuna's family because that was the team that had Sasuke on it. Sasuke and Kiba both wanted in on the assault of the mercenary camp but had been firmly told that because they hadn't killed before they would be nothing more than liabilities when they did make their first kill until they got over it. Naruto would be spamming clones to take out as many mercenaries as they could before they were popped while Haku and Kakashi would be running through the confusion and taking out as many of the mercenaries as they could. Kakashi wasn't truly happy with the plan especially not some of the later portions that were suggested to make sure than none of the mercenaries escaped. He could only hope that the plan went correctly and that they all lived through it.

(authors note)

I'm not really happy with how this chapter came out but I'm putting it up anyway so that I can move on in the story. Around chapter fifteen, twenty, or somewhere along there I'll go back and do some major editing so if you don't like this chapter don't worry about it.


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